


Voyager Treks

by Ruchira



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: F/M, Post-Endgame
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-12
Updated: 2020-10-12
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:34:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 41,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26979643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ruchira/pseuds/Ruchira
Summary: A series of "Short Treks" type stories of the Voyager crew, inspired by the events of Picard. Each chapter will be a short snippet in time of one of our main characters, and some of these "treks" will be more connected than others. Post-Endgame
Relationships: Tom Paris/B'Elanna Torres
Comments: 6
Kudos: 16





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Yet another story that was originally posted on FFN and transferred over here. As always, I own nothing of these characters or Star Trek and get no profit out of posting fun little snippets on a free website.

**Chakotay**

Noumedi (Ivor III:VI)  
Stardate 61057  
January 1, 2385

Months away at high warp, the people of Earth were celebrating another New Year. On Noumedi, Governor Chakotay raised a glass of bourbon at his kitchen counter to mark the occasion. He was probably the only person on the colony of roughly 10,000 to notice. _Occupational hazard of being governor_ , he thought. Nobody else had any reason to keep Earth calendars, because nobody else had to deal with the bureaucrats in the Federation Colony Services in Nairobi.

It was quiet, unseasonable night in the northern continent of the moon without seasons, thanks to the perfectly perpendicular axis, the kind of night that the farmers liked to joke that you can hear the maize growing. It was even quieter inside Chakotay's house. Malanie was on shift in the clinic, not that that made any difference anymore. Had it been a few months previous, he would have brought her dinner to share on quiet nights, but those days were over. It was an amicable split; Malanie was still young and wanted children, whereas Chakotay knew those days were behind him. And while he was certainly fond of her and enjoyed their time together, he no longer believed in the kind of all-encompassing love that she had desired since she was a child, and he suspected that she knew that.

He was taking another sip of the bourbon when he heard a soft knock at his door. He didn't rush to answer it; he knew that knock. That was Dr. Unthank's knock, and she wasn't there to talk to him.

He gave it another minute before he put his glass down and crossed to the door, and as expected, there was a steaming plate of food at his stoop. Something with lentils and maize—not the purple maize that made the inky black bourbon Noumedi was famous for, but the yellow corn of Dr. Unthank's garden. He took a deep breath and immediately identified at least three distinctive spices, although he knew there were more. The lentils and spices were undoubtedly replicated; Dr. Unthank liked to cook, so she replicated all the necessary ingredients and prepared them at her stove. The retired and widowed biochemist had raised three boys and still cooked as if she had four hungry men at home. Chakotay was more than happy to be the recipient of her leftovers. When she started leaving food for him, shortly after he arrived, he made the mistake of inviting her in to share the meal; she politely but firmly informed him that while she was happy to cook for people, she enjoyed the company of others only in small doses and preferred to spend most of her time, including her meals, alone. In the ensuing six years, he had still only gleaned small details of his neighbor's life: she was widowed, she had raised three sons, she had helped found Noumedi as the head distiller at the bourbon distillery, and like him, had blood of a Native American, although her tribe was significantly further north on the Pacific coast than where his own people had settled.

Chakotay removed a fork from his drawer and topped off his bourbon before settling in to the meal. "Computer," he said, "Do I have any messages?"

_*You have one message,*_ the computer informed him. _*Sender: B'Elanna Torres. Location: Mars.*_ He smiled; he had expected that. B'Elanna wrote to him weekly, like clockwork. She was the most reliable from his _Voyager_ crewmates. Tom also wrote, although his messages tended to just be holos and videos of the kids, often without any sort of context. Harry occasionally checked in as he flew around the Federation on whatever ship he was serving on now, and it wasn't unusual to hear from Ensign—no, Lieutenant, junior grade now—Icheb, although those messages sounded a lot more like official reports than personal correspondence. He couldn't remember the last time he had heard from anyone else. Seven was doing something at the Daystrom Institute, and Kathryn… He pushed that line of thought aside.

"Play message," he instructed.

_*Hey, old man,*_ B'Elanna's voice began, and he smiled at the familiar greeting. She had been a 19-year-old kid who was too damn good at fixing broken machines the first time she had referred to him as such, when he made his first attempt to recruit her to his crew. She had scoffed and said she had enough troubles of her own without adding his to the list; within two hours, she had been swearing at his warp core. Unlike that day almost two decades before, though, he was resembling the nickname, his once-dark hair now mostly gray. * _Thanks for the bottle of bourbon, but next time, leave Tom's name off the shipping label. He got to it first—of course he did, he works from home—and tried to hide it from me. Don't worry, I made him pay for that.*_ There was a teasing note to her words that made him make a face; he knew what that tone implied, and even almost eight years after their wedding, he didn't need that mental image.

* _Joey's walking, if you can believe that,*_ she continued. * _Which makes him the youngest to figure out that trick. Eight months and change. I thought Tom was going to knock him back on his ass. I don't think we're ready for three mobile kids.*_ He smiled at that, because it sounded like a problem of their own doing. _*Miral's excited about him getting big enough to play with more, but I think Aly was with Tom on not wanting him up and about. She's still not happy about not being the baby in the family anymore.*_

"Computer," he interrupted. "Display last image from Tom Paris." A holo immediately appeared on his monitor; unlike most that Tom sent, this one was professionally taken, as he insisted on family pictures to send out as 'Christmas cards,' and like always, B'Elanna rolled her eyes but indulged him.

He didn't know if it was motherhood or civilian life that had finally relaxed B'Elanna, but whatever it was, it suited her. She had let her hair down—literally; she now wore her hair in dark waves that tumbled over her shoulders—and the smile on her face bore little of the hesitation or hostility she had once carried with her every day. Tom had lost more hair on top of his head and gained more on his face, and Chakotay was still amused by the fact that the former pilot's beard was more gray than blond. And then there were the kids. Miral was the only one he had ever seen in person, and she had only been an infant that last time. She looked more like her mother with every image and video Tom sent, down to the dark curls and seriousness she couldn't hide in her dark eyes despite the forced smile. Alyah—Aly—couldn't be more different, a cheesy grin on her two—no, three—year-old face, her sandy curls still having the feathery delicacy and disarray universal among toddlers, her green eyes bright. Joey was the baby, sitting up in the picture, Miral's arms around his waist to keep him in place, his eyes on his sister instead of the camera.

Three kids. How did they have three kids already? Wasn't it just yesterday that B'Elanna was glaring at him and lobbing hoverballs at him much harder than necessary because he was teasing her about her 'dalliances' with the pilot?

_*Tom says hi, by the way,*_ B'Elanna's voice continued. * _He's working on—*_

* _Incoming transmission from Starfleet Command, Earth,*_ the computer announced, cutting off B'Elanna's words.

Starfleet? That was unusual. Usually messages from Earth came from the Federation Colony Services. He hadn't had anything to do with Starfleet since they thanked him for his service and accepted the resignation they all but requested six years before. Not even the ship that had carried him from Earth to Noumedi had been a Starfleet vessel. He was tempted to ignore it, but that wouldn't be very professional of him. He was an elected official now; it was about time he acted like it. Even if that required another sip of bourbon first. "On screen," he said automatically, his words even going back to his Starfleet days.

It took him a moment to place Admiral Picard, and when he did, he blinked in surprise, wondering what such a senior officer would want with the governor of a minor colony known for nothing other than really good bourbon. And, if the hops farmers and brewers were successful, maybe soon good beer, too. "Admiral," he greeted cautiously.

* _Governor Chakotay,*_ Admiral Picard acknowledged with a tilt of his head. * _I hope this isn't an inconvenient time.*_

"I was eating dinner, actually," Chakotay replied, barely biting back the 'sir' that had almost ended that sentence. He wasn't in Starfleet anymore; he was the governor of a colony that was only reluctantly still in the Federation at all.

* _I apologize for the interruption,*_ the admiral said. * _I've been told that Noumedi produces some of the most unique alcoholic beverages in the Federation.*_

"If you want to place an order, Admiral, we have a Ferengi distributor," Chakotay said. "I can give you his contact information."

* _That won't be necessary, thank you,*_ Admiral Picard said, an amused smile on his face. * _I am somewhat involved in the business myself. My family has a vineyard and winery in France. Perhaps one day we can meet and sample each other's wares.*_ Chakotay didn't respond to that, because one of the highest ranked officers in Starfleet wasn't calling him to talk about wine or bourbon.

Sensing his reticence, Picard got down to the point. * _The Romulan sun is in the process of supernova,*_ he said, and that time, Chakotay wasn't able to keep the surprise from his face. Or his suspicion, because he realized a beat later that there was no need for a Starfleet admiral to be telling him this. Sure, Noumedi was closer to Romulus than Earth, but still more than several light-years away from either. It would take years, if ever, before any radiation resultant from a supernova would reach Noumedi. _*Our astrophysicists have suspected it for a few years now, but it was recently confirmed by the Romulans. They've requested the Federation's assistance in relocation.*_

"This is interesting, Admiral, but you're going to have to spell out what this has to do with Noumedi."

Picard smiled slightly, as if amused by the impatience of a small child, and Chakotay had to fight to keep his annoyance from showing. He hadn't realized how patronizing the Federation was until he listened to a Starfleet captain try to explain why the colony where he had grown up, where his family still lived—had still lived—was destroyed by Cardassians. * _How many ships does Noumedi have?*_ he asked, that annoying habit of asking a question to avoid asking the real question.

"Not enough to relocate the entire population of Romulus," Chakotay replied, and that time, Picard gave a chuckle and held up his hands.

* _That is not why I'm calling,*_ he assured the governor. He hesitated, and then said, * _The effects of the impending supernova have made it impossible to grow the grains needed to make Romulan Ale on Romulus,*_ he said. * _Meterological and soil analysis conducted by our scientists indicate that Noumedi—*_

"You want to move the Romulan Ale industry to Noumedi," Chakotay interrupted, and damn if he wasn't proud of how even he was keeping his voice, even as his blood was boiling. This was why the colonists on Noumedi wanted nothing to do with the Federation. Why the hell did they have samples of Noumedi soil or meteorological studies on file, and why the hell had they tested it for suitability for Romulan Ale without asking anyone?

Despite the fact that Noumedi had only been founded after the destruction of Ivor Prime by the Borg twelve years before, almost none of the inhabitants were first generation colonists. Almost all of them had been displaced from their homes; some by disaster, most by war or the arbitrary redrawing of lines on a map. These were people who had been constantly moved at the whims of the Federation, constantly trying to scratch out some sort of living in the soil of whatever planet the Federation had relocated them to. It was only by accident that they discovered that the soil and water on Noumedi was ideal for the purple maize that gave Noumedi bourbon its distinctive flavor and black-and-oil color. For this admiral to call him out of the blue and interrupt his dinner to tell him that they would be displaced again in favor of some Romulans looking to make their own booze was beyond hubris; it had the potential to start another Maquis rebellion. And he knew Noumedi was not the only colony occupied by citizens who would take up arms at the slightest provocation.

* _In a manner of speaking,*_ Admiral Picard replied.

"No," Chakotay informed him.

* _No?*_ Picard echoed, as if he hadn't heard him.

"No," he repeated. "The citizens of Noumedi have no interest in playing whatever part you see for us in this goodwill mission with the Romulans. Most of us were victims to that twenty years ago when the games were being played with the Cardassians, and we won't do it again. If you're looking for another place where they can grow their grains and make their ale, find a place that doesn't already have 10,000 people on it."

* _I believe you misunderstand, Governor,*_ Admiral Picard said in a calm voice that only made Chakotay more annoyed. _*I do not want to displace anybody. What I am suggesting is a partnership, for a number of farmers and brewers to join the people of Noumedi, not to take over the settlement.*_

"A number," Chakotay echoed. "And just what might that number be? We have 10,000 Federation citizens here—" technically a lie; about 40% of their population was Bajoran, and he certainly didn't care enough about Federation immigration laws to ask how many of them were on a Federation colony legally— "and we're not interested in becoming an oppressed minority on a Romulan settlement."

* _A few hundred. No more than a thousand,*_ Picard replied. * _I understand that this is a big ask. And it is an ask; we will not move anybody without the approval of the Noumedi colonists. Talk it over with your council or your advisers, and let me know your decision.*_

"My council is more stubborn than I am," Chakotay warned. "I'll tell them about your proposal, but don't expect an approval."

* _I await your decision, Governor,*_ Admiral Picard said with a nod before signing off.

As promised, he brought up Admiral Picard's proposal at the council meeting the following night, and his fellow members of the council took it about as expected. It took less than a minute for them to change the topic of conversation from 'do we allow the Romulans?' to 'how do we leave the Federation?'

"I was at work at the distillery when the earthquakes started on Yurdyuva." Everyone stopped talking to face Dr. Unthank, whose eyes were still on her omnipresent knitting, as if she was talking to herself. "We evacuated the building quickly. Everything was lost, of course, except our lives. Javi wasn't so lucky. He was teaching. The gymnasium collapsed, and he ran in to see if there were any students he could save. He never came out. Nothing we had built survived that day. An entire colony of rubble. Those of us who made it off the planet with our lives and the clothes on our backs were the lucky ones. Or not, depending on your perspective." A few beats of silent knitting. "The Federation gave a dozen or so colonies to the Cardassians and left their citizens to fend for themselves. The Dominion War left several planets uninhabitable." She finally looked up at them, her big dark eyes searching the council members before returning to her knitting. Her fingers hadn't paused in their ministrations. "We were all refugees. Where would any of us be if we hadn't ended up here?"

"They're going to send us Tal Shiar disguised as brewers," Powe Dina complained.

"You operated a Resistance cell. Governor Chakotay had a Maquis ship," Dr. Unthank pointed out. "There aren't too many clean hands on this colony. Let the Tal Shiar come. Let them report back to their superiors that all of you former 'freedom fighters' have turned in your phasers for plows and fermenters. Maybe they will do the same."

As usual, Dr. Unthank was the smartest person in the room.

They reluctantly agreed to allow a Romulan survey team, and then they would make a decision about whether or not to accept the 'few hundred, not more than thousand' Romulan refugees after meeting with the survey team.

Two weeks later, Chakotay stood on the southern continent with a few of his fellow council members, watching the small Romulan ship approach. He realized he was tense, as if prepared for battle, and forced himself to relax, to breathe.

_They aren't coming to attack you_ , he reminded himself.

The ship landed, and a minute later, the rear hatch opened. Chakotay had met a few Romulans, all in his years as a Starfleet officer; they all had the same haircut and the same horrible clothes, and it took this meeting on Noumedi soil to realize that that was a uniform and not representative of the Romulan population. For a second, he felt a little silly and wondered what the Romulans thought of Federation fashion if all they saw were Starfleet officers.

"I'm Governor Chakotay," he greeted, stepping forward and offering his hand. "Welcome to Noumedi."

"Tai," the first Romulan who stepped off greeted, accepting the handshake. He wore comfortable clothing, the type you would expect of someone who spent his days in a brewery, or in a field. "The rest of my team: Yourak, Ela, and Lina. We've all been in the ale business for a number of years."

Chakotay didn't catch the rest of Tai's speech despite his best effort, his eyes continuing to drift over to Lina. There was something about her that was familiar, even though he was sure he had never set eyes on her before. If nothing else, the dark copper hair that fell in thick coils to a bob was pretty distinctive, but it wasn't the hair that had captured his attention. It was her eyes. They weren't on him; they were out on the horizon, on the blue of the distant mountains. There was fear in them—fear for her planet, for what would happen, he didn't know—but there was something else, too. There was a strength, a determination, a tilt of her jaw that told him that, whatever would happen in her life, she was going to face it straight on, and he realized that that was what was familiar. He knew that set of the jaw, that strength, from other women who had worn it.

And he knew that everything was going to be okay.


	2. B'Elanna Torres

Utopia Planitia Ship Yards, Mars  
Stardate 61289  
April 3, 2385

B'Elanna Torres studied the progress from the night team on her PADD as she sipped her coffee, aware of but ignoring the usual morning chaos in the house. Tom was arguing with Aly about eating her breakfast, Joey seemed to be singing a song to himself, but none of his not-quite-12-months-old-yet words were intelligible, the dog was doing an honestly good job of cleaning the floor under Joey's highchair, and Miral was… Miral was nowhere to be seen, now that she allowed that awareness to enter her brain. "Miral?" she called out. "Are you almost ready? We have to leave in five minutes or you're going to miss the shuttle to school. Again."

"I'm coming!" Miral called out from upstairs, and a few seconds later, the house was filled with a lot more noise than one six-year-old should be making descending the stairs. She appeared in the kitchen in her blue and white school uniform, her dark curls tumbling down her back and held back from her face with a blue headband. It would be a tangled mess by the end of the day, but B'Elanna knew that some battles weren't worth fighting. Miral had started insisting on doing her own hair about six months prior, complaining that the two braids Tom had been tying her hair in every morning were 'too childish.'

She was six years old. B'Elanna hadn't thought she would have been one of those mothers who harped about how her kids were growing up too fast, but, well, here she was, wondering when her six-year-old had become concerned about being too childish.

Miral accepted her breakfast of peanut butter toast and hot chocolate—Kahless, that girl was such her father's daughter—from Tom before giving him a hug good-bye. "Bye, Dad. Love you. See you after school," she said, her standard morning farewell. She attempted to give her sister a hug as well, but while Aly allowed Miral to put her arms around her, she otherwise pretended her older sister didn't exist. B'Elanna gave Tom a confused look, and got a shrug in return. There was a strange mixture of love and animosity between them that both Tom and the Doctor claimed was normal for sisters, and there was never any saying what would set one girl off at any given time.

Joey, on the other hand, was more than happy to accept a hug and a kiss from his oldest sister. "Miwa!" he exclaimed, then broke into a fit of giggles. Miral smiled at the toddler and ruffled his hair, as dark and curly as her own, before she bent down to give her farewell to the dog, still lying in wait under Joey's high chair.

"Bye, Inja. Be good for Aly for Joey," she said, scratching the mess of a dog behind her ears.

"Miral, you're going to get fur all over your uniform," B'Elanna said with a sigh. She gave Tom a look, which he pretended to ignore.

"Martian poodles don't have fur, Mom," Miral said with impatience that she was much too young for. "They have _hair._ "

"Well, you don't need Inja's _hair_ all over you, either," B'Elanna replied. "Go put your shoes on."

B'Elanna gave her husband and younger two children her own kisses of farewell, refilled her coffee, and then she helped Miral with her jacket and backpack at the door before they headed out. Miral may have been grown up enough to want to do her own hair, but she was still young enough that she liked to hold her mother's hand as they were walking, and the two dark-haired, part-Klingons walked down the street toward the shuttle stop hand-in-hand, each holding their hot beverages in the other hand as they walked.

Miral eyed the girls in their secondary school uniforms as they approached the shuttle stop. She had a complicated relationship with the older students, the way that all little girls seem to have with slightly older girls, both fearing them and not wanting to wait to be them. She often talked excitedly about what it would be like to be in secondary school while Tom and B'Elanna listened with amusement, neither having the heart to shatter her dreams with the reality of the situation. And neither willing to resurrect the arguments they were already having about whether their kids would go to the secondary school at UP or if they would send them to Earth, either as boarders or living with Tom's parents.

"Semi!" Miral exclaimed as she saw her best friend approach, finally removing herself from her mother's grasp to run to greet the other child.

"Have a good day at school, Miral," B'Elanna called out after her, amused. Miral did have the good graces to turn to wave good-bye.

B'Elanna turned to Schruti, Semi's mother, and both smiled. Schruti was another engineer and team lead at UP and one of her closest friends. They watched together as their daughters boarded the shuttle before they turned and headed for work. "Are you working this weekend?" B'Elanna asked, and Schruti nodded.

"I volunteered my team to cover," she exclaimed, then laughed, "which has to make me the most unpopular engineer ever! First Contact Day is such a human holiday. I switched with Jacobi in order to get Iluidi New Year's off next month. I am sorry to miss Joey's birthday party, though."

"We're going to be on Earth," B'Elanna reminded her. "You hate Earth."

"I just don't get why everything—"

"Has to be so heavy there!" B'Elanna finished in unison with her friend, so familiar with Schruti's usual complaint about the gravity on Earth compared to Mars or Iluidion. Both women laughed.

"But seriously, that gravity is terrible," Schruti concluded. "You guys should come over sometime next week, and we'll have another party for Joey. Not that he'll know what's going on, because human children are completely clueless at 12 Earth months of age, but the rest of us will have fun."

"I'll check with Tom about his work schedule," B'Elanna promised as they entered the engineers' locker room.

"When are you guys leaving?" Schruti asked, stepping into her dark blue coveralls. Everyone was color coded at UP: engineers were in navy, mechanics in red, synths in orange. Schruti liked to joke about showing up in fuschia coveralls one day, just to see what would happen. B'Elanna was sure the entire station would shut down in the confusion.

"Tomorrow night after shift," B'Elanna replied, fastening her own coveralls closed. Both women swept their hair in buns before stepping out of the locker room.

"Want to go out for drinks after work today?" Schruti asked as they headed down the corridor. B'Elanna gave her a look.

"Are you kidding?" she asked. "We've been working so much overtime trying to get these tugs operational that I can't even remember the last time I was home in time for _Miral's_ bedtime, much less Aly's or Joey's."

"Tom can handle it," Schruti teased.

"I know he can," B'Elanna replied. "But I sometimes _like_ seeing my children. Once this whole Romulan thing is over, there will be plenty of time for drinks."

"I'm holding you to that, Torres," Schruti said warningly as they parted ways to their respective work areas.

B'Elanna received sign-out from Belarezo, the night team lead, confirming her suspicions from her readings over breakfast that they were behind schedule. "Your new mechanic has also arrived," Belarezo concluded, jerking a thumb behind him to where a very young and very intimidated looking woman was seemingly trying to make herself fade into the bulkhead. A difficult feat in those red coveralls.

"At least you didn't scare this one away before her first shift," B'Elanna commented.

"Not for lack of trying," he said cheerfully. "See you tomorrow, Torres. See if you can get us back on schedule."

She snorted. "Why, so you can just get us behind again?" She waved him off before turning her attention to her new mechanic. "I'm B'Elanna Torres, your engineer," she introduced. "I'll show you around and introduce you to the rest of the team."

"Katie Baker," the new mechanic replied. She looked impossibly young, even younger than she appeared at first glance, but B'Elanna tried not to judge her on that. After all, she had been 22 when she became the chief engineer of Starfleet's newest Intrepid-class ship.

As if knowing what she was thinking, Katie's eyes widened. "You were the chief engineer on _Voyager_!" she exclaimed.

"I was," B'Elanna replied, her tone measured even as she sighed inwardly.

"What are you doing _here_?" the new mechanic blurted out, and then she immediately reddened. "I mean, you could have your choice any engineering job!"

B'Elanna smiled slightly, not feeling like pointing out that she hadn't finished an engineering degree until after she returned to the Federation or that she had a criminal record, albeit one that had been pardoned. "It's important work," she said. "And we like it here. I get to work on fixing up old ships during the day and get to go home to my husband and kids at the end of it. Most days. And nobody is shooting at us or trying to assimilate us."

Katie's eyes were still wide, wide enough that B'Elanna wondered what this young mechanic, who had probably been barely a teenager—or even younger—when _Voyager_ returned, could possibly thinking, but she didn't say anything as they headed down the corridor toward the lift. They were halfway to the worksite before she asked, "You have kids?"

"Three," B'Elanna said with a smile. "Miral will be seven next month, Aly is three, and Joey's first birthday is on Friday."

"Wow," Katie said, her eyes somehow even wider. "That's a lot."

"Well, only the second one was planned," B'Elanna deadpanned. "I'm joking," she added quickly at the surprised look on Katie's face, even though, honestly, she wasn't. Miral was a happy surprise, the result of both of them reversing their contraceptives to 'see what would happen,' and then she had been furious with Tom when she found out she was pregnant with Joey, even though she knew she was just as much to blame as he was.

And now, she couldn't imagine a life without her happy son or the chaos of having three small part-Klingon kids under one roof. Even though that was a lot of chaos.

Katie Baker did just fine on her first day, and when she came back for her second day, B'Elanna figured this one might actually stand a chance of surviving at UP. "Why are we doing this?" the young mechanic asked out of the blue.

"Flushing out the intermix chamber?" B'Elanna asked with a frown. That was covered in the mechanic certification courses and definitely emphasized on the exams; she didn't think she would have to explain something so rudimentary to a mechanic, no matter how young she was.

"No, I get that," Katie said quickly. "I mean, all of this. Converting all these decommissioned ships into tugs."

They were actually retrofitting the engines of decommissioned ships into engines for tugs, but B'Elanna doubted the young woman cared about the distinction. "The latest estimates from Starfleet are that they'll need 10,000 tugs to relocate the Romulans before their sun goes supernova," B'Elanna said. "All of the shipyards are working at maximum capacity. Most of the teams are building tugs, but there's no point in letting otherwise functioning warp engines from decommissioned ships go to waste when they could be retrofitted." She preferred this kind of work to building things from scratch. Making impossible repairs and turning the dysfunctional into a working product was what she had done for her entire career, from the Maquis to _Voyager_. She was good at it, and nothing beat the rush of satisfaction at seeing something that had once been little more than scrap turning into a functioning machine again.

"But… why?" Katie asked again. "I mean, why are we doing all of this for the Romulans?"

B'Elanna gave her a quick glance before returning her gaze to the intermix chamber. She didn't have time for racism on her team, if that was what Katie was implying. "Everyone deserves a chance to live," she said, her tones clipped. "The engines we're retrofitting would just be recycled if it wasn't for this project. Why not turn them into tugs? It may not seem like much, but each tug is capable of carrying a ferry that can hold a few thousand people. That's a lot of lives we're working to save." She had a history of taking other people's fights more personally than she needed to: the Maquis, the Pralor, the sentient holograms, even the way people treated the synths here on the Station, as if it was really that difficult to just treat them with a little bit of respect. Dr. Cook told her that it was a deflection, that she was so invested in the perceived underdogs because she viewed them as a proxy for herself as a kid when nobody was fighting her fights and that maybe now that she was an adult, she should focus a little bit more on her own fights and a little bit less on everyone else's.

Years of therapy, and she still couldn't stand her therapist. Nor did she listen to her. Even though she knew she was doing it, that knowledge didn't stop her from wanting to save all the Romulans herself any more than it stopped her from getting too invested whenever one of her own kids complained about some injustice—usually perceived—in her own life. Tom was constantly reminding her that not everything the kids complained about required a full defensive posture.

Katie's eyes were still fixed on the engine they were working on. "Would they do the same for us?" she asked after a pause. "Do you think they would work to build 10,000 new ships if we needed to relocate out of the Sol system?"

B'Elanna shook her head at the question. "Hopefully, we'll never need to know," she replied. "Listen," she said, her tone softening, as if she was talking to one of her own kids. "What others do or don't do to help us says something about them. What we do or don't do to help others says something about _us._ And the Federation… we're better than that. We have to be better than that." She needed the Federation to be better than that.

Katie lapsed into silence, and when she spoke again, it was like the whole conversation about the Romulans didn't happen. "Are we off tomorrow? For First Contact Day?"

"We are," B'Elanna confirmed. "Do you have plans?"

Katie shook her head. "I'm sticking around here," she said. "I still need to unpack my apartment. Not that there's much to unpack."

"There's a lot to do on Mars," B'Elanna said, her excitement growing. Tom was always teasing her about how completely she had embraced their new home. "If you're into outdoor activities, there's some great hiking, mountain biking, rock climbing, just about anything you can think of. My husband is really into these little ground vehicles in the hills—he calls them 'dune buggies.'"

"I really like hiking," Katie said, as if afraid that wasn't the right answer. B'Elanna chuckled softly.

"Remind me to show you some of my favorite hikes when we're done here," she said. "I've been limited to short, easy paths that a six-year-old and three-year-old can handle for a while now, but there are some that are much more challenging and have much better views. Don't forget a hydration pack. Once you leave the cities, it gets colder, but it's dry and deceptive."

"I grew up in Arizona," Katie said with a smile. "I understand dry and deceptive."

"I'll defer to your expertise, then," B'Elanna joked. "Are you ready to install the chamber?"

"We're good at this end," Katie confirmed.

Several hours later, after they finished with the engine—it had been an easy one; the ship it been in had been in bad shape, but the warp core itself had been stable—and after B'Elanna had sent her database of Martian hikes to Katie and wished her team a good holiday, the Paris-Torres family was in their shuttle, getting ready for the trip to Earth. B'Elanna had strapped Aly and Joey in—Miral knew to keep seated until they left the atmosphere; Aly should have, but the pre-schooler was stubborn in her fearlessness—answered Aly's question for the fifth time about why the dog wasn't go to Earth with them—Inja didn't do well in space, and it was easier to just have the neighbor come by a few times a day to play with her during a short trip than deal with _that—_ and returned to the front to take her seat at the co-pilot controls. Tom was in the left seat, going through his pre-flight checks. B'Elanna briefly powered up her console on the right out of habit, and then remembered that she didn't need to and decided she didn't want to. She deactivated the console again, leaning back in her chair with a heavy sigh. Kahless, this project was exhausting, and for a brief moment, she entertained herself with thoughts of where they could take a vacation when it was over. Sam was always inviting them to visit Ktaris, or they hadn't seen Chakotay in six years. Hell, at this point, even visiting Tuvok on Vulcan or a random trip to Qo'noS didn't seem so bad.

She smiled at thought, absently gathering her hair to resecure it. Her hair was getting long again, and like she did every day, she entertained the notion of cutting it to the length she wore for most of her adult life, now that Joey was out of the "grabbing hair" stage of childhood. But Tom had liked it when she started growing it out, and she liked that he liked it; it was the same reason why she knew that he wouldn't shave his beard, even though he was constantly complaining about how gray it was.

Tom's attention was down on his console, a small, contented smile on his face. There was a nostalgia there, for both of them, him being in the pilot's seat. He didn't fly very often anymore, but she knew he was still comfortable here, as comfortable as he was when he was in his programming lab at home.

It had taken them a while to get to that level of comfort. They had gone from newlyweds to parents so quickly; from respected senior staff officers to civilians with criminal records— _pardoned_ records, Owen Paris liked to emphasize—even faster. They had immediately gone on parental leave when _Voyager_ returned to Earth, and when they came back on active duty four months later, they found that the uniforms just didn't fit them anymore. In the seven years that they were on _Voyager_ , B'Elanna had forgotten that she had left Starfleet Academy for a reason, and in those years in the Delta quadrant, it was never Starfleet that she had felt a part of; it was _Voyager_. Tom, likewise, had seemed to forget the distaste he had had for Starfleet since he had been kicked out. And Starfleet had changed, to, the result of years of war with the Dominion.

And so, despite the pardons and the promotions, after less than two weeks of being Starfleet officers again, Lt. Commander B'Elanna Torres and Lt. Tom Paris had added their names to the growing list of _Voyager_ crew members, Starfleet and Maquis alike, who had resigned their commissions.

They just hadn't realized how hard that would be.

Despite her work history as _Voyager_ 's chief engineer, nobody was willing to hire B'Elanna without an engineering degree and certification, and that meant going back to college. At 30. With an infant. And that was just not going to happen. She took her mechanic certification exam instead, which she had aced without even trying and without sleeping the night before.

And then Kathryn Janeway had said that there was no way her former chief engineer was going to be working as a mechanic, and despite everything, B'Elanna still couldn't let her former captain down.

She hated it as much the second time around.

It was an accelerated BS in engineering, geared toward "adult learners" who had extensive experience as mechanics, but even that fact provided little relief. While she was dealing with writing essays and reading 'literature,' because apparently somebody thought that engineers needed a solid understanding of the humanities, Tom had gotten a job with a test pilot group in Australia. The hours were long, the ships usually had too many bugs and were clunky to fly, the designers and engineers seeming to have little time for his recommendations to fix said bugs and clunks, and between his frustrations at work and her frustrations with school and both of their frustrations at trying to figure out the whole parenting thing, they did nothing but fight all the time, until in one fit of rage, she asked him why he was still flying if he hated it so much and why he was still there if he hated her so much.

The next day, he quit his job and enrolled in a master's program in holoprogramming. Two months later, she graduated and was offered an apprenticeship at Utopia Planitia in order to work toward her Professional Engineering certification.

Turned out, a new planet was exactly the solution to all—well, most—of their problems, even the ones they hadn't realized they had. Tom did much better when he was working for himself and setting his own hours, and took to being the primary caregiver of the kids in a way that she had never been able to comprehend.

"You're staring," Tom said. His eyes were still down on his console, but his smile had widened into that full smirk he had.

"I love you," she said matter-of-factly. His smile widened as he finally looked up and at her.

"I love you, too," he said, leaning over to kiss her.

"Can you two stop kissing so we can _go_?" Miral asked from the back, exasperated. Both Tom and B'Elanna chucked.

"Yeah," Aly chimed in, her attention still down on her PADD. "Let's _go_."

"Go go go go go!" Joey chimed in.

"I guess the masses have spoken," Tom observed.

"Kahless, we have bossy kids."

"Don't tell me you're surprised," Tom teased. He gave her another kiss before radioing to control that they were ready for departure, and then they were off.

* * *

B'Elanna didn't like San Francisco. It reminded her too much of everything she hadn't liked about Starfleet when they returned, and it was where Tom's family was. He was different when around them, in ways he didn't even realize. His relationship with his father was light years from what it had been when he was conditionally released from prison before _Voyager_ departed, but he was still the son trying desperately for approval and not realizing that he already had it. The kids were different on Earth, too. They were crankier as they adjusted to the different gravity and noises and people, and none of them really knew how to act around grandparents and random other family members who sometimes hung around the Paris house. They seemed to know that their parents were different here as well and over compensated for that: Miral grew even more serious, Aly even more hyper and silly, Joey even more in his weird not-an-infant-not-a-toddler-always-an-asshole-but-cute-while-doing-it stage.

In the midmorning of Joey's birthday, the now-12-month-old was down for a nap, Tom was off with Miral somewhere, and B'Elanna was listening to Aly pretending to read a story from her PADD, but really making up her own story to fit whatever pictures she saw there. She had woken that morning crying about her head hurting, and if there was one kid who could ruin the day when she wasn't feeling well, it was Aly. Fortunately, after an analgesic and a few hours of undivided attention, she seemed to be close to her usual hyper and sassy self.

Aly stopped talking abruptly at the sound of the front door opening, her green eyes going wide at the sight of Dr. Laura Paris in the doorway. "Hey, demon child," Tom's sister greeted. B'Elanna clenched her jaw; she hated the nickname that Laura had given Aly, but when she complained about it to Tom, he assured her it had nothing to do with her being part-Klingon and everything to do with the fact that she was the polar opposite of Miral in terms of how easy of a baby and toddler she had been. Aly was actually Laura's favorite of her nieces and nephews and made no effort to hide it; they were not only both the middle children, but she also saw the sass and stubbornness that she herself had had as a kid in Aly.

Aly raised her arms for Laura to pick her up, and the public health physician was happy to oblige, lifting her to her hip and allowing Aly to nuzzle her head in her neck. "Good morning, Alyah," Laura said, smoothing back those sandy curls. "How are you today?"

"She had a gravity headache this morning but seems to be doing better now," B'Elanna answered for her. Laura looked sympathetic.

"Gravity is rough," she agreed. "Where are your sister and brother?"

"Joey's sleeping," Aly informed her.

"Again, gravity's rough," Laura said with a laugh. She shifted Aly slightly and glanced over at B'Elanna. "I talked to your friend Chakotay a few days ago," she said. "He told me to say hi. And to wish Joey a happy birthday."

B'Elanna felt a rush of guilt; she had regularly written to Chakotay after he moved out to the Omicron sector, but with how busy she had been at work, her correspondence had been slipping. "How is he?" she asked.

"Same as always," Laura replied. "Governors gonna govern. I have a visit out that way scheduled." Laura was some sort of director in Refugee Health at the Federation Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and if B'Elanna thought things were busy in her life, she had nothing on her sister-in-law, who was constantly traveling somewhere to either assess a planet for settlement by the Romulans or check in on an existing settlement. "I'll bring you back some bourbon. Assuming I don't drink it all first."

"On a trip that long, I can't say I'd blame you." Odd that she now thought of a trip that was measured in months as long, given that they had been on _Voyager_ for almost seven years.

"Eight months, round trip," Laura confirmed with a sigh. "I'm going to miss this little face," she said to Aly, who giggled and again buried her head in Laura's neck.

"I take it things are busy at work."

Laura rolled her eyes. "You have no idea," she said, then amended, "Actually, you probably do. Hey, baby girl, you've gotten heavy or I've gotten weak," she said, depositing Aly back on the couch to a fit of giggles, and then returning her attention to B'Elanna with a shake of her head. "I don't know why we're doing all this," she said. "The Romulans have a very robust public health system of their own. There's no reason for us to have taken over resettlement, and I don't know why Admiral Picard thought we would be better than them to do it or why the Romulan Senate agreed. Sure, we should have offered them any assistance they needed, _especially_ in terms of ships and tugs, but I feel like we've swooped in on full 'human-savior' mode, and there is _no_ reason for that." She took a deep breath and gave a short shake of her head. "I'll get off my soapbox," she said apologetically. "Are my parents around? Or Jenn?" She said the last name with a touch of dread; their older sister. Tom and Laura had always been close as kids, but both viewed time with the oldest sister as a chore.

"Your parents are around somewhere. Tom and Miral are out back. Jenn and her family haven't come yet."

"That's probably for the best," Laura said. "It'll give me some time to get a little bit tipsy before that happens." With that, she headed deeper into the house in search of other people, and Aly went back to narrating the nonsensical story.

Until Laura came back in, and without a word, picked up Aly and carried her outside, her voice ringing with that false cheer Tom used when he was trying to pretend everything was all right when nothing was. B'Elanna opened her mouth to question her, but closed it when she saw Tom and Owen following closely behind.

She hadn't seen such a look of fear on Tom's face since they were on _Voyager_.

The monitor on the wall came alive with images of ships firing and a planet burning. B'Elanna opened her mouth again to ask what they were watching, but no sound came out when it registered.

They were watching the news. And the planet burning was Mars.

Her body went rigid, unable to look away from what she was seeing, unable to stop the assault on her senses that was happening, knowing that these images would haunt her nightmares forever.

Every time she had felt at home, it was taken away from her. Any feelings of home she had as a kid ended when her father walked out when she was five. The Academy had never stuck, but she had found a sense of belonging that she had never before had in the Maquis—until they were all brutally killed. She had found a new family on _Voyager_ , a sense of purpose and a sense of belonging—and as soon as they accomplished their goal, as soon as they re-entered Federation space, the 150 people she thought she would spend her life surrounded by scattered throughout the galaxy. She and Tom and Miral had started over again on Mars, her own little family the only thing she had left from _Voyager._

And now Mars was on fire.

"That's enough," Tom said forcefully, raising his hand to close the broadcast.

"No!" B'Elanna exclaimed. She had only lasted 47 seconds the first time she had tried to watch the battle that ended the Maquis fight. She owed it to her friends, her colleagues, to pay them more respect.

She lasted a minute and 20 seconds.

She buried her face in Tom's chest, her right hand trying to cover her ear, trying to block out of the sounds of the destruction and the journalists narrating it. Tom held her tight, repeating _it's okay, it's okay_ over and over into her left ear until the words had lost their meaning for both of them. She was sobbing, and in the one part of her brain that wasn't paralyzed by the news, she was aware that his chest was also shaking, hot tears falling into her hair.

Schruti. Semi. Katie Baker, her new mechanic. Dev Johnson, the kid next door who watched Inja when they were gone and wanted to be a veterinarian someday. Inja, that obnoxious fluffy Martian poodle that Tom had shown up with one day. Her team, the teams working over the holiday, kids in Miral's and Aly's classes, infants in Joey's play group. How many people had stayed on Mars, had decided that a three-day weekend wasn't worth the trip to Earth or anywhere else?

Their house. The kitchen table where countless meals had been eaten. The couch where hours had been spent holding babies, then children. The marks on the wall to show each child's growth. The new mark they had placed for Joey the day before, because Miral had insisted that it was better to be one day early than two days late. The hololab where Tom had worked on his clients' programs, where he had written his own, where they had played games of Velocity and practiced with bat'leths, where they got a communications link stable enough to talk to Neelix in the Delta quadrant, where the kids had been exposed to worlds far away from their own. The bedrooms where they had tucked in their children. The stuffed animals that had watched over the dreams of those kids. The bat'leth that Kohlar had given to his _Kuvah'magh_.

_Schruti. Semi. Katie. Dev._

And those were just the ones she knew of for sure who were on the planet. How many else would there be? There were almost 200,000 people who called Mars their home, either part-time or full. How many were still alive?

She held tight to Tom. Her family, her home. He was all the family and home she had left now, he and those three children they had made. She couldn't let him go.

She couldn't lose the last family she had left.


	3. Lt. Commander Harry Kim

Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina, Earth  
Stardate 61295  
April 5, 2385

The water at the beach was really still too cold to play in, but Deron didn't seem to mind, and Lt. Commander Harry Kim mentally added 'swim lessons' to the ever-expanding list of things his pre-schooler needed.

He could still hear the laughter of the First Contact Day party in the grassy area, and took his eyes off the three-year-old just long enough to confirm that nothing on that front had changed. Lots of people—most of whom he didn't know—lots of food, lots of noise. Deron had quickly gotten bored with the adults talking about adult things and had wanted to go to the beach, a novel experience for a kid who lived on a starship, and Harry had volunteered to be the one to watch over him and make sure he didn't drown or wander too far off. Rawiya had known that he was almost as bored as their son and gave him that look that said that she knew exactly what he was doing, even as she had kissed his cheek and thanked him.

He would never stop wondering how he had managed to meet, woo, and marry a woman who was social enough that his mother didn't even notice when he snuck out of parties she was hosting.

Tom had always teased Harry that he would marry the first woman he saw as soon as they were back in Federation space, and as it turned out, Harry had done just that. They had beamed over in shifts to the _Challenger_ sickbay for medical exams while Starfleet scrambled to figure out how to handle the apparent destruction of the Borg, the sudden return of _Voyager_ , and the crew of 150 who had picked up who-knew-what and been without a 'real' physician for seven years, and the first person Harry had noticed as he walked into the pristine sickbay was the stunning doctor talking to Naomi Wildman, an expression of honest joy and mirth on her face as Naomi told her a story. She had turned at the sound of the door opening, that smile still on her face, and Harry had known at that moment that he had to meet her.

In retrospect, he had been really creepy about it, and even after almost five years of marriage, he still didn't know what that said about Rawiya that she hadn't run far, far away from him after that first interaction.

Harry heard a splash and turned in alarm just as Deron burst into uncontrolled laughter. He had stumbled and fallen in the previously-knee-deep water, now seated and completely soaked. Relieved that he was okay, Harry chuckled and shook his head slightly. "Hope you like wet clothes, Der," he said. "This isn't a holodeck."

"I like wet!" Deron shouted in reply, splashing the water with his hands as if to make a point. Harry laughed again, even as he sighed internally, wondering how much Deron would like wet in another half an hour, when his clothes were still damp and he wouldn't want to change them. Because preschoolers made no sense. Rawiya would tease him if she was there, somehow knowing what he was thinking and telling him that he worried too much. Whatever happened in half an hour would happen in half an hour, and in the meantime, let him have his fun. For as confusing for him as her unending optimism and her unshaking faith that everything was going to work out was—especially considering that she had started her Starfleet career as a new physician in the height of the Dominion War, performing trauma surgery out in the field and seeing entire ground units taken out—he was endlessly grateful for it. Tom had warned him that for as rewarding parenting was, it was also hard. Not just hard in the respect of sleepless nights and temper tantrums that made no sense, but in figuring out how to raise this small defenseless person and what needed to be worried about what didn't. Now three years into this parenting thing, Harry figured that since he worried too much and Rawiya didn't worry about anything, they probably hit things about right on average.

And now Rawiya was starting to talk about wanting another kid, which gave Harry a whole new set of things to worry about.

Deron was back on his feet, walking cautiously down the edge of the water and then running away with squeals of laughter as the waves approached, and Harry smiled. Tom hadn't lied when he said that parenting involved a lot of worrying—even though Tom's parenting style seemed to be similar to Rawiya's: nothing to worry about if the kid was still breathing—but he also hadn't lied when he said that there was nothing like seeing the universe through your kid's eyes. Especially when that kid got to see land during breaks from living on a starship. When had been the last time Deron saw a beach before this trip? Six months ago? More? Harry wondered if Deron would always have this sense of wonder when he was on land. Rawiya said that kids raised in space had a different sense of land than those who regularly had dirt under their feet, and as a Starfleet brat who hadn't lived on a planet until she started at the Academy, she would know. She said that some kids invented homeworlds in their mind, whereas others—like her—became obsessed with the planet their ancestors had come from. Harry was embarrassed to admit that Rawiya knew more about Earth than he did, and had probably visited more parts of it; she definitely knew more about which parts of Earth her ancestors had come from, which, due to her genealogy research, she knew was every continent except Antarctica. Meanwhile, Harry hadn't even known that 'Kim' was a surname that originated on the Korean peninsula until Rawiya had asked him about it when they were dating.

_"Harry!"_

It was Rawiya's voice, and it was pure terror. And nothing scared Rawiya.

Harry acted on pure instinct, running into the few centimeters of water to swoop up his son before running as fast as he could while carrying a stunned 15 kg weight.

Someone had projected a display, and everyone at the party was staring at it in horror. _Rogue synths attack Mars_ , the scroll on the bottom of the screen read.

Mars.

Tom. B'Elanna. Miral. Aly. Joey.

Harry quickly handed off Deron to Rawiya and fumbled in his pocket for his PADD. He dropped it in his haste and bent to pick it up, already keying in both Tom and B'Elanna's contacts.

He didn't care which answered, as long as one of them did.

 _*We're okay, Harry.*_ It was Tom's voice, and Harry knew immediately that it was a lie, but he still sagged in relief. * _We're at my parent's house. You're coming in a few hours for Joey's birthday party, remember?*_ Harry couldn't believe that in his panic, he had forgotten how much he was looking forward to escaping to San Francisco to see his friends. _*Although I guess that's probably off now.*_

"Transporters have been halted and shuttles grounded," Rawiya confirmed, her own PADD out.

Harry gave a frustrated exhalation. He wanted to help his friends, or at least be there for them, but that seemed impossible now, when the few thousand kilometers that separated them might as well have been a few thousand light-years. "Let us know if you need anything," he said, knowing how useless the words were even as they left his lips.

 _*We will, Harry,*_ Tom said, pretending Harry's offer of help actually meant anything.

Harry turned to Rawiya and saw the fear still in her eyes. She was still holding Deron, a rarity for both of them: he liked his freedom, and she liked to give it to him. "We should check in," she said, her voice as calm and rational as ever despite that fear, and he nodded his agreement. She was wearing her combadge somewhere in the layers of her sari and pressed it. "Dr. Avasarala to _Tuman_ ," she said. "Commander Kim and I are checking in. We're in South Carolina and are okay."

 _*Acknowledged, Doctor,*_ the disembodied and frenzied voice of whoever was at comms—Varga?—replied. _*Maintain current position until further instruction._ *

"Thanks, Varga," Rawiya replied before signing off. She turned back to Harry and just looked at him for a long minute. "Gods," she finally said. "This is so much worse than last time."

It took Harry a minute to figure out what she was talking about; she had been on a training cruise on the _Santvana_ as a medical student when Earth had been attacked during the Dominion War. She had told him that by the time they returned to San Francisco, almost everything had returned to normal. Over a thousand people had died that day; the numbers from Mars would be much, much higher than that.

Harry wrapped Rawiya in an embrace, as much to remind himself that she was real and really there as to provide any comfort. "What the hell is going on?" he murmured.

"I wish I knew," she murmured back.

He never thought he would live in a world where Mars would be attacked. And by who? Or what? Or why?

He didn't know how long they had been standing there in each other's arms—with Deron beginning to squirm—before his PADD vibrated with an incoming message. "Admiral Janeway wants us to meet at her place," he said, reading the short message. Rawiya frowned and finally returned Deron to the ground, again pulling out her own PADD.

"Transporters are still on stand-by," she reported, and Harry gave a chuckle that completely lacked any mirth.

"Not when you're a vice admiral, apparently," he said. "She included an authorization code."

"Well," Rawiya said, grabbing Deron's shirt to keep him from running off. "Who are we to decline such an invitation? Go tell your parents where we're going while I get this one into some dry clothes."

"No!" Deron insisted. "I like wet!"

"Okay," Rawiya said with a shrug. "Wet pants it is."

"He's going to get grumpy about that later," Harry argued.

"And I'm sure Admiral Janeway has a refresher in her house," Rawiya replied.

Harry hadn't check to see how many people Admiral Janeway had invited—ordered?—to her house, but he found that they weren't the first to arrive. There was a redheaded teenager talking to the admiral when they walked in. He initially thought it was one of Janeway's nieces, until she turned at the sound of the door opening. "Harry!" Naomi Wildman exclaimed, rushing over to give him a hug.

"Naomi," he managed in his surprise, and even after all these years, the sight of her still gave him flashbacks of Vidiians and spatial rifts and taking the newborn baby from the Doctor's arms, and the sight of her again reminded him that the two of them were just a little bit different from everyone around them. "Gods. How long has it been?"

"Five years?" she asked. "Not since your wedding. And Dr. Avasarala!" she exclaimed, moving over to Rawiya. "That's such a beautiful dress!"

"Thank you, Naomi," Rawiya replied. "It's a sari, traditional dress in India. This one is a replica of the sari worn by one of my ancestor's on my father's side, to her first First Contact Day celebration as India's representative to the United Earth government."

"Your mother's side," Harry corrected, distracted. He hadn't realized how slowly human children grow up compared to everyone else until he had his own human child; not even Vulcans, who lived easily twice as long as humans, took 25 years to reach neurologic maturity, and now here was Naomi, twelve years old and looking like she was ready for college.

"Hmm?" Rawiya asked.

"Representative Mahida," he said. "She was an ancestor on your mother's side." Rawiya had been excited when she had found the picture of the representative in that sari at that First Contact Day in 2150, and it was a beautiful sari, bright purple and silver, somehow bringing out her gray eyes from her brown skin and black hair. She didn't often dress up and he made a point to pay attention when she did.

"You're right," she acknowledged with a smile. She turned back to Naomi. "If you decide to get married, marry someone who listens when you talk about your odd hobbies. Even when your odd hobbies are genealogy."

"And you," Naomi said, bending down to face Deron, "must be Deron. It's nice to meet you. I'm Naomi." Deron, with uncharacteristic shyness, attempted to hide in his mother's sari.

Sam Wildman was watching the interaction with a smile on her face, and she finally lifted her eyes from Naomi to Harry. "Hey, Sam," he greeted, again having that familiar flashback of handing her Naomi, the complete bewilderment in her eyes at the fact that she was holding a newborn who had just died. It hadn't been until he became a parent himself that he realized how hard it must have been for her, to start her parenting journey with losing her child. He didn't know how she reconciled the fact that the daughter she had raised was not the one she carried for 16 months of pregnancy. "No Greskrendtregk or Kenny?"

"No, this is just a girl's trip," she said, smiling over at Naomi. "I wanted to show her some of my old haunts before she started at the Academy in the summer. I haven't been on campus since graduation."

"I can't believe you're starting at the Academy already," Harry said to Naomi, and Sam laughed.

"You and me both!" she exclaimed. She nodded at Deron. "Enjoy this while it lasts. It definitely didn't last long enough with my kids. I think both of mine were this size for about a week, at a year old. Ktarians grow up too fast."

"Mom," Naomi said, rolling her eyes. "You knew exactly what you were getting yourself in to. Especially with Kenny."

"I know," Sam replied to her daughter. "And I wouldn't have changed either of you for all of the human children in the universe. But as your mother, I am allowed to reminisce about when you were little."

"Naomi, I'm going to have to ask you to stop monopolizing Harry and Rawiya's attention," Admiral Janeway said with mock sternness. She gave Harry a sad smile. "It's good to see you, but I wish it could have been at Joey's birthday party instead of under these circumstances."

"I'm wet!" Deron announced happily, apparently having gotten over his sudden onset of shyness.

"Mr. Kim, I see you inherited your father's powers of observations," Admiral Janeway said, fighting a smile and losing. "Would you like to refresh your clothes?"

He shook his head happily. "I like wet!" he declared.

"He got a little carried away at the beach," Harry said apologetically, and Janeway chuckled again.

"Getting carried away at the beach is most certainly allowed, Commander," she informed him. "Especially when you're three years old. Although at any age, maybe we can all use a little bit of getting carried away at the beach."

Tom and B'Elanna chose that moment to arrive, B'Elanna carrying Joey and Tom carrying a cake. "It seemed like a waste of cake," he said distractedly, his features blank.

"It's Joey's birthday!" Aly announced excitedly, and even though he knew that Aly was only two months younger than Deron, Aly growing up never failed to catch Harry off-guard. He saw Tom and B'Elanna and the kids so infrequently that he was missing seeing them grow up, and even now, almost seven years after _Voyager_ returned, he still felt like that wasn't the way it was supposed to be. He was supposed to have seen those kids every day, supposed to have been there for first steps and first words and every other first. Even though he knew that any in universe where that happened, he wouldn't have met Rawiya, wouldn't have had Deron. Hell. He probably still would have been an ensign.

"Dr. Avasarala," Tom greeted Rawiya with mock formality.

"Mr. Paris," she replied in kind. "Thanks for the holoprograms. You need to hurry up and get the next chapters of the Looney Tunes program. Deron loves them and is looking for more."

Tom's mask fell, his eyebrows first knitting together and the rest of his features falling. "All of my programs are at home," he said, his voice apologetic, as if failing to get a three-year-old more holoprograms was his fault. Or was the worst thing that had happened that day.

"Oh, Tom," Rawiya said, hugging him tightly. "I'm so sorry. I didn't mean—"

"I know," he interrupted, managing a tight smile. "It's okay. Well. It's not. But. You know."

"Whatever you need, Tom," she said. "We're here for you."

"Thanks," he said honestly.

"Miral, why don't you take Aly and Joey outside to play?" B'Elanna asked as she sat Joey down. "Deron, you should go with them."

"Is that okay with your mother?" Tom asked Admiral Janeway.

"Lucy's with her," Janeway replied with a tight smile. "And she still loves children. She has no idea who they are, usually, but she loves seeing them." In the ensuing years, Harry had forgotten that Admiral Janeway had moved home—really, to the guest house next to the house where she had grown up—because her mother had an advanced form of dementia. The best neurologists in the Federation all agreed that the prognosis was grim, and that there was nothing to do other than making sure her life was calm and comfortable.

"Naomi, why don't you go out and watch them?" Sam suggested.

"She's about to start at the Academy, Sam," Tom replied. "She's not a kid anymore. And everything that happened today will shape her entire career. Don't send her outside."

"Tom."

"Sam."

" _Mom._ "

Sam sighed and raised her hands in defeat. "Fine," she conceded. "Gods. Why is everyone always so eager to grow up?" She didn't really want an answer, and no one offered one.

Janeway's PADD chimed, and she frowned. "The Doctor won't be coming," she said. "He's on his way to Mars. He's leading a team of EMHs on a search and rescue mission."

"Who else is coming?" Tom asked, and Janeway shrugged.

"I invited everyone," she said. "I don't know who's available and who's not."

The conversation was stilted and staged as they ate cake and pretended all was normal as more people came in, and it was all so wrong, because nothing was normal and they all knew that, and Harry didn't know why they were pretending. Except B'Elanna. B'Elanna never pretended, and she hadn't started any time recently. She was angrily pacing in front of Janeway's fireplace, and they all knew better than to stop her. She was quiet in her fury, and nobody was willing to tamper with that. Definitely not Harry.

The kids were back outside playing when the last person Harry would have expected showed up at the door. "Seven, come in," Admiral Janeway said, as if Seven came by every day. And for all Harry knew, she did. "Thanks for coming."

"I did not want to be alone," Seven said, her voice somehow different. But it had been more than six years since Harry had heard her voice, and for all he knew, that was how she sounded now.

"Have you heard from Icheb?" Janeway asked. Seven nodded.

"He reports that all is well on on the _Charleston_ , although they area all shaken by the news."

"But he's safe?" Janeway asked emphatically, and again, Seven nodded.

"He is safe," she confirmed.

"Daddy!" Deron exclaimed as he rushed back into the living room.

"Deron Kim," Seven greeted Deron, even though she had never met him. And, really, Harry had no idea how she knew who he was. Or even that Harry had gotten married and had a kid. "You are more resembling your father than you had as an infant."

Harry smiled slightly. He was sure someone had told Seven that this was something that she was supposed to say, because it was a complete lie. Deron was definitely Rawiya's son, his skin barely fairer than her own, the same color as the chai she drank every morning, and his fine features were the same as hers. It was only in his eyes that even the hint of his paternity could be found. "Thank you, Seven," he said, acknowledging the comment for the compliment he was sure it was intended. "What do you need, Deron?"

"I'm not wet anymore!" Deron declared.

"Okay, buddy," Harry said, wondering what the appropriate response was supposed to be. "Do you want to go back outside to play?" Deron nodded excitedly and ran back out the way he had come.

"Are we going to talk about this?" B'Elanna demanded, her fury finally having boiled over after Deron left. "What are we going to do about what the hell happened?"

"Do you have a suggestion, B'Elanna?" Janeway asked mildly.

"None of this makes sense!" B'Elanna exclaimed. "They're saying it was the synths who attacked Mars? These synths couldn't haven't done that! These aren't Soong-type androids, Kathryn! They aren't even advanced holograms. They're basic synths. They can't just… independently decide to turn around and attack a planet. They can't make decisions. They just… follow orders." She swallowed a few times. "If this was the synths, someone did it. Someone programmed them to do it."

"B'Elanna, I know you're upset—"

"I know what I'm talking about!" B'Elanna snapped. "I work alongside those synths every day. I've even repaired a few of them!"

"Momma?" This time, it was Aly who had snuck in without them noticing, and B'Elanna visibly and forcibly calmed. She bent down to Aly's level.

"Yes, Aly?"

"Are you mad?"

B'Elanna closed her eyes for a second and nodded. "Yes," she replied. "But I'm not mad at you, or Miral or Joey or your dad."

"Then why?"

She frowned and thought about that for a minute. "Someone hurt our home," she finally said. "And that makes me mad."

"And Inja?"

"They hurt Inja, too," B'Elanna confirmed, and a small chin trembled.

"I love Inja," Aly said, her voice small.

"I know, Aly," B'Elanna replied. She collected the small girl into her arms and sat down on the ledge in front of the fireplace, holding her on her lap and smoothing down those wild sandy curls.

"I want to go home, Momma," Aly murmured, curling into her mother.

"I know, Alyah. So do I."

It was well after midnight by the time the gathering had dispersed and gone their separate ways and Harry, Rawiya, and Deron made their way back to Harry's parents' house in South Carolina. Deron had been out for hours and offered little resistance to being put to bed, and then Harry sat on the edge of the bed, watching Rawiya's normal bedtime routine as she changed into the shorts and tank top she usually slept in and secured her thick dark hair into its usual braid. He was too exhausted by the day's events to do much else; even the thought of changing into his own pajamas seemed overwhelming.

"Harry," Rawiya said, and he was surprised to see her looking at him with an intensity she didn't often have. "Are you okay?"

"I will be," he replied. "I'm still processing."

She took a seat next to him on the bed and kissed his cheek before resting her head on his shoulder. "Everything is about to change, Harry," she said. "I need you to be ready for that."

He managed a chuckle. "Now I know it's bad," he tried to joke, "when the most optimistic person I know is telling me to prepare myself."

"Oh, Harry," she sighed. She lifted her head and looked at him. "I try to be optimistic, but I think the line between optimism and nihilism is fuzzier than most people think. Things happen. I just don't dwell on them, and sometimes that makes me an optimist and sometimes it doesn't. But you… You still believe that there's something worth worrying for, and I hope that never changes." She sighed again. "You didn't live through the Dominion War. That's not to say that things on _Voyager_ were easy," she added quickly. "I know for sure that they weren't, and you had far more than your fair share of challenges. But you guys survived those challenges by sticking to your principles, the principles of the Federation. We didn't. You still believe the Federation stands for something good, and most days, I don't know if I believe that anymore.

"If this had happened in the Federation you and your crew lived by in the Delta quadrant, things would go differently," she continued. "But it didn't. It happened in this Federation, the one that justified war crimes because we thought the other guys were worse. And so, things are going to change, and it's going to look even less like the Federation that you still think you live in, and I need you to be ready for that."


	4. Admiral Kathryn Janeway

San Francisco, California, Earth  
Stardate 61375  
May 7, 2385

"You've made your point, Jean-Luc." Admiral Kathryn Janeway didn't know if she was more annoyed at the fact that Admiral Jean-Luc Picard had brought on this current headache, or the fact that he was completely justified in his actions and response to the actions of the rest of the admirals at Starfleet Command. Or, rather, inactions of the rest of the admirals at Starfleet Command. "Now are you going to come back inside so we can continue to talk about this or not?"

"I'm not bluffing, Kathryn," Picard said calmly, slowly turning his gaze from a nearby tree to her. "My plan, or my career."

"Let's _talk_ about this—"

"We've talked about it," he said, his voice still annoyingly calm. "All we have done for the last month is talk about it, and there is no alternative. We promised to help the Romulans with their relocation. If we are not going to fulfill our promise, well, then we are an organization that I want no part of." Janeway pressed her lips into a straight line as she sat down next to him. She had no argument to that, because she had had the same thoughts and the same questions. "How is your mother?" Picard asked conversationally.

She usually responded with a quick, _she's fine_ , even though the reality was, her mother hadn't been fine in years. She just wasn't in the mood for the usual lie, not with everything else that was going on. "She has more bad days than good," she said. "She doesn't recognize anybody, not me, not my sister, not even Lucy. Her caretaker. Her moods are erratic, but physically, she's doing just fine. Her neurologist says she can live another five, ten years like this." She exhaled a chuckle. "What kind of life is that?"

"I'm sorry," Picard said, and he did sound as if he was sympathetic.

"I've discovered in the last few years that my greatest fear is that I'll die before my body realizes it," she continued. "What do you fear, Jean-Luc?"

"An insignificant life," he replied, quickly enough that she suspected that this was something he thought about.

"I think you're going to be okay there." She could think of few officers in Starfleet history with more significant careers.

"My brother, Robert, believed that for a life to be significant, you have to have a legacy, to be remembered," Picard continued. "He had a son, Rene. To this day, I do not know if Rene was his legacy, or if the vineyard was the legacy he was leaving Rene." He looked away again. "There was a fire at the vineyard, 14 years ago. They both died. And now, I am the only one left who remembers them, and Robert's legacy dies with me."

She knew Picard lived on a vineyard in France, but she hadn't known about his brother or nephew. "I'm sorry," she said. "But you've had a significant career already. You have a legacy. Why are the Romulans so important to you?"

"Because we gave our word!" he said forcefully. "It is not about the Romulans, it is about what we stand for. The Federation was founded on the principles of the fundamental rights of sentient beings and the goal of uniting our strength to maintain interstellar peace and security." He didn't need to quote the Federation charter to her; she had memorized it, she had quoted it to others, years ago, when working together was the only way that two crews would be able to get back home, when working together was the only way that any ship could escape the Void. "If we turn our backs on the Romulans, if we let millions of people die when we could save them, we are turning our backs on everything we stand for. And I will not be party to that."

Adhering to the principles of the Federation was the only way that she and her crew had survived alone in the Delta quadrant, and Janeway still believed that they stood for something real. "I still believe that we can do more to enact change from the inside than the outside," she said, but Picard shook his head.

"I'm too old for this," he replied with a sigh. "I've given it my best effort, and that wasn't enough. There's plenty for me to do at the vineyard. It's time for me to hang up my hat, so to speak, and change my focus."

"It's not too late, Jean-Luc," she argued. "I refuse to believe that it's too late for Starfleet or the Federation."

"Ah, the optimism of youth," he said with a smile. "We need optimistic young admirals such as yourself to take over where I have failed."

"I'm not that young," she argued, and he chuckled.

"You're not that old," he replied, and sighed. "Of all of the things that I've seen, Kathryn, I never thought I would see the day that Starfleet lost its way. Or, maybe, I have known it for a while and refused to believe it until now. This is not the Starfleet that you and your crew was living by in the Delta quadrant. Things happened during the Dominion War, Kathryn. I believe that is when we began on the path that we now find ourselves."

"The thing about paths, Jean-Luc, is that you can usually travel them in both directions."

"And I hope that Starfleet will," he replied. "But I will not. Can you do me a favor, Kathryn?"

"I can try," she replied cautiously.

"Can you watch over Raffi? She is taking this harder than I anticipated."

She frowned, and her frown deepened as the name clicked. "Lt. Commander Musiker?" She asked. "She seems rather… disgruntled."

Picard chuckled at that. "And here I thought you made your career out reforming disgruntled officers," he observed. Unbidden, the thought of Chakotay popped in her head, along with the feelings of guilt that always accompanied it. What had happened to them? For seven years, he had been her closest friend, her closest confidant. Why had that changed? When had it changed? Had they simply…drifted apart, or had one or both of them done something to hurt the other? She no longer searched her memory for such an event, because she no longer trusted it after the years of searching for something that may or may not have been there. His 'relationship,' if you could call it that, with Seven didn't last long, and she might not have ever been aware of it if her future self hadn't told her about it, but it did hurt her deeply, and she wasn't even sure she knew why. It had been a long time at that point since she had had romantic feelings toward her first officer, or so she had thought. Had she still carried a torch for him? Had she somehow expected him to just wait for _Voyager_ to get back to Federation space, to her being open to a relationship?

Or was it something else? Had it been a different kind of betrayal? Starfleet had told her before they had told him that they were not going to make his provisional rank permanent, and so it was no surprise that he had offered his resignation, but did he have to go so far away? Why Noumedi? What was he even doing on that obscure M-class moon in the Ivor system, other than drinking bourbon? He was governor, she knew that, but before that, he had been working on an anthology of the lives of colonists displaced by war. By the Dominion War, the Cardassian War. But he hadn't had to go to Noumedi to do that.

Maybe it was her selfishness. She had grown so accustomed to his council, to his steadiness over the years, and for him to leave to so suddenly… She hadn't had the opportunity to become accustomed to her new reality, her new role, and then he was gone, no longer there to help her navigate these new challenges, and she had felt his absence more strongly than she had ever thought possible.

Had it been Seven who had prompted a move so far away? Kathryn wasn't privy to the details of when they started seeing each other, and nor did she know the circumstances under which they stopped. Seven had quickly been offered a position at Daystrom in Seattle, and it had seemed like as soon as that happened, Chakotay was gone.

Seven. Where _was_ Seven? After the meeting at her house after the attack on Mars, there had been no contact from the former Borg. She talked to Seven's team at Daystrom Seattle; none of them had seen or heard from her since she left work on the evening of April 4th. She just… hadn't come back after the attack. Her apartment had been emptied, no forwarding address, no word to anyone. She was gone.

But Chakotay and Seven hadn't been the only reluctant officers reformed into a respectable ones, and some of them still had the good graces to stay in the system. Tom and B'Elanna were more or less settled into their new house in Costa Rica. Tom was back up and running as a holoprogramming consultant, but B'Elanna had spent the past month at home with the kids. She knew her former engineer; B'Elanna claimed that she was happy to have the time with the kids, but she was still angry about the attack, the kind of anger that would spiral down to despair if she didn't feel like she had something constructive to do, and soon. She hadn't talked to B'Elanna yet, but the Academy needed more engineers who knew how to think quickly and act at the seat of their pants to teach cadets. She doubted B'Elanna had ever thought of herself as being professor material, but if there was one thing she had learned about the engineer, it was that she could do anything she set her mind to. She just needed a little push in the right direction.

Two had run off. Two were cocooned in their anger. Not quite the lasting track record for reforming disgruntled officers.

"I'm not as young as I used to be," she said again. "That's a lot of work, and I don't know if I have that kind of energy left in me. And it's a lot easier to 'reform' disgruntled officers when you're 70,000 light-years away from home and they see they have no other choice." And even that had taken years. For all except Chakotay.

"I would not recommend sending Raffi to the Delta quadrant," Picard said, amused, and then his smile faded. "She needs a sense of purpose," he said, again serious. "If you are serious about reminding Starfleet of our origin and our mission, she will be an asset to you."

Janeway sighed. She already had a full-time job and a full staff. She didn't need an operations officer with an agenda and a tendency to be a loose canon and would probably be carrying a grudge. "I can only do so much," she said warningly. "If she's not willing to work with me, there's only so much I can do."

"I will talk to her," Picard promised. He rose from the bench. "Thank you, Kathryn. Feel free to stop by the vineyard any time. I'll even put a pot of coffee on for you."


	5. Lieutenant Icheb

_U.S.S. Coleman  
_ Stardate 62431  
July 1, 2386

Lt. Icheb carefully considered the contents laid out on his bed before adding another shirt. He would be on leave for eight days; he really wasn't sure what Seven had in mind for them to do for those eight days, and wanted to ensure that he had the right supplies for any contingency.

The announcer on his door chimed; he looked up and frowned. In the seven months that he had been on the _Coleman_ , nobody had stopped by his quarters, and for 0.72 seconds, he forgot the protocol for such an event. He sat the shirt down on the bed and moved from the sleeping area to the living area of his quarters. "Enter," he finally said.

The door slid open to reveal Commander Yamanis, the _Coleman_ 's executive officer. "Sir," he greeted, standing up a little bit straighter, but not quite at attention. "Please come in."

"Icheb," Yamanis replied, stepping in as he waved for Icheb to relax. "Sorry to disturb you after hours."

"It is not a disturbance, sir," Icheb replied. "I was just finishing my packing." He remembered too late how to greet a guest in his quarters. "Would you like to sit down? Can I get you anything to drink?"

"Oh, no, thank you," Yamanis said quickly. "I won't take up too much of your time. I just had some questions about your leave."

"I believe I fill out all the required sections on the leave request form, sir," Icheb replied.

"You did," Yamanis assured him. He rubbed his jaw for a second. "This is the first time you've requested leave since coming aboard," he said.

"Yes, sir," Icheb replied. It was the first time he had requested leave since joining Starfleet; every other leave, including during his transfer from the _Charleston_ to the _Coleman_ , had been due to administrative processes. He didn't actually know much about what one did while on leave; he tried to construct a database based on conversations with crewmates on both the _Charleston_ and here on the _Coleman_ , but the activities seemed quite diverse. Visiting family was the most common activity, with 47% of officers returning from leave mentioning spending time with family. That was followed by spending time with friends, whether from previous postings or friends outside of Starfleet. He had done that during his transfer leave; he had coffee with Admiral Janeway and visited Naomi at the Academy. The remainder he filed under 'miscellaneous recreational activities' and as he failed to detect any patterns in what those recreational activities might be, concluded that it was more driven by the personality of the officer on leave than any other factor.

"We wouldn't ordinarily grant an officer permission to spend time with the Fenris Rangers," Yamanis said after another pause of 17.8 seconds. "But Captain del Castillo and I agreed that this is an unusual situation, given that you're spending time with family." There were an additional .59 seconds before he said _family_ , long enough that Icheb noticed the pause, even though he wasn't sure Yamanis had noticed that he had done it. "Just… make sure you conduct yourself as a Starfleet officer out there."

"Yes, sir," Icheb replied. As he was a Starfleet officer, he wasn't sure how he could conduct himself otherwise.

Yamanis nodded as if that closed that. "I know you haven't been with us on the _Coleman_ long, but the captain and I have been really impressed with your performance," he said. "We'd like you to begin command training."

"Sir?" Icheb asked.

"The command program," Yamanis repeated. "You meet all of the qualifications—you're a full lieutenant, a section leader, and you have the recommendation of your commanding and executive officers." He smiled slightly; Icheb wondered if it was because he knew that that wasn't a long list of qualifications, and in fact, all section leaders but the chief engineer, who was a lieutenant commander, would fit that description. "It doesn't add much to your additional duties. A few rotations as gamma shift commander and some additional one-on-one time with me and Captain del Castillo." The correct grammatical construction of that sentence was _Captain del Castillo and me_ , but Icheb didn't say that. "I think you have what it takes to captain your own science vessel someday," Yamanis concluded. "Are you interested?"

Icheb hadn't given command much thought, beyond the fact that it would probably be required if he was ever going to make admiral. "Yes, sir," he replied, and Yamanis smiled as if the answer amused him.

"Great," he replied. "In that case, enjoy your leave, and when you get back, you'll see an authorization to replicate a red uniform."

"Sir?" Icheb asked, and Yamanis again looked amused.

"You're part of the command team now, Icheb," he said. "And those in the command team wear red."

Icheb recounted this conversation to Seven a few days later, sitting in the passenger seat of her small craft, and to his surprise, she didn't seem impressed. "Do you want to be a captain?" she asked.

"It's the logical progression of a Starfleet career," he pointed out. "And commanding a vessel is nearly a prerequisite for promotion to admiral."

"Do you want to be an admiral?" she asked before he had the opportunity to explain the career paths of the few admirals—outside of the Starfleet Surgeons General—who had promoted to admiral without commanding a ship.

"It is the top of a Starfleet career," he said again, not sure what exactly she was asking.

"I know that," Seven replied, impatience creeping into her voice. "But do you _want_ it?"

"I want to excel at my career," he said. "And the indication that one has done that—"

"Do you like what you're doing now?"

"Aboard the _Coleman_?"

"Do you like being a science officer," she clarified, and he frowned, not getting her point.

"Yes," he replied. "It is the culmination of my years of study and experience."

"And you are aware that if you take command, you will no longer be doing the work you are doing now."

"Admiral Janeway—"

"Was too busy running _Voyager_ to be a scientist," Seven interrupted. "The majority of her job was focusing on keeping the ship running and the crew alive. She spent much more time in negotiations for trade or travel routes than any actual involvement in scientific study. Would you rather spend you time in diplomatic negotiations or in the astrometrics lab?"

"Why are you opposed to command training?"

Seven sighed. "I am not opposed to you entering a command training program," she said. "My concern is that you have not thought through what this would entail."

"You said the same thing about me enrolling in Starfleet Academy when we arrived at Earth." She had had no qualms about him enrolling in the Academy while they were still in the Delta quadrant, because it wasn't as if he had many other options. But once they were in Federation space, she urged him to seek out programs with better academic records, because she didn't think a Starfleet career would be scientifically rigorous enough to keep him interested. And in part, she was right; as an astrometrics major, he knew more about the subject than any of his professors. But he wasn't in Starfleet because that the was best place to get a scientific education. He had tried explaining it to her once, during a weekend he had stayed with her in Seattle shortly before graduation. It was Starfleet that had rescued him from the Borg and from his parents. To him, Starfleet wasn't just a collection of ships and officers; it was an ideal. It stood for something important, and he strove every day to live up to that.

"You seem to be enjoying your service as a Starfleet officer," Seven acknowledged, which he figured was as close as it was going to get to her admitting that she was wrong, and he would take it. He wouldn't have gotten even that much eight years ago, when they were all still on _Voyager_. She had changed—of course, so had he, although he would claim that most of his changes were from growing up and not being a teenager anymore—and was continuing to change. He never would have thought that the Daystrom researcher whom he stayed with during weekends and school holidays from the Academy, who taught him to cook and play the piano and took him to see plays in order to 'improve his humanity' and help him fit in with his peers—which worked; he wasn't exactly the most popular person on the _Coleman_ , nor had he been on the _Charleston_ , but he had friends and had received quite a few compliments when he played the piano at ship functions—would ever have gone off to join a group like the Fenris Rangers, but something had changed last year after the attack on Mars. Or maybe it was the ban on synthetics that immediately followed. He never forgot that he had been Borg, but it had less of an impact on him. Without a cortical node, he slept instead of regenerated, and was able to experience a full range of emotions without any issues. Seven didn't have those luxuries, although the modifications the Doctor had made had allowed her more emotions than she had had has a drone.

"In the Collective, there is not this drive for upward promotion," Seven continued. "A drone does the job they are assigned. They do not seek to be the Queen, or any other position than what they perform."

"I was never a drone," he reminded her. "I was a genetic weapon, then I was in a maturation chamber, and then I was disconnected." And then he would have been a genetic weapon again, had it not been for Seven and Captain Janeway's interference.

"You were not," Seven acknowledged. They sat in silence for 2.8 minutes, before she abruptly changed the ship's course.

"Why did we change course?" Icheb asked.

"I am going to take you to meet a friend of mine."

"A friend?" He knew she had friends, of course, but the idea still seemed somehow strange to him.

She was silent for one minute and 47 seconds as she composed and sent a message and waited for the reply. "He will meet us on Freecloud," she announced. She didn't change course again, so she must have figured that he would agree to the location. Freecloud was in the Alpha Doradus system, outside of the Federation. Icheb had never been there, but had researched how its economy worked; one of the leading Federation economists described it as a 'Non-aligned Crypto Libertarian Pseudorepublic,' and he wasn't quite sure what that meant. He made a mental node to read more about economics.

It took another 12 hours and 13 minutes to get to Freecloud, and as soon as they entered communication range, the viewscreen exploded with what appeared to be advertisements. Seven dismissed those with a quick flick of her wrist and entered her access code into the Freecloud Orbital Control. "Shall we?" she asked rhetorically as she rose from her chair after docking.

Despite the late hour in Stardust City—they were six hours and three minutes from sunrise—the city was busy, but Seven navigated it with ease, barely giving anyone a glance as she weaved through crowds and made her way to the back entrance of an unremarkable building, Icheb following close behind.

The room was some sort of public house, the kind of place Tom Paris would call a 'dive bar," groups of people at separate tables and not appearing to notice each other, serving staff weaving between them with trays of food and drinks. Seven still moved with that assured grace, not glancing around as she walked to a table in a corner.

"Hugh, Icheb. Icheb, Hugh," she introduced as she slid into the seat across from the man who had risen to greet them. Hugh. Icheb blinked in surprise when he registered who was standing there.

He was a former Borg. He was the former Borg who had been on the _Enterprise-D_ , whose newfound individuality while he was on that ship led to the destruction of an entire cube.

Hugh, for his part, didn't look surprised in the least at who he was meeting. "It's nice to meet you, Icheb," he said with a pleasant smile. He skipped the usual handshake and went straight for a hug. "I've heard so much about you! Please, join me. Would you like anything to drink, eat?"

"Whiskey," Seven said to the server who had appeared out of nowhere, surprising Icheb. As far as he knew, she didn't have anything with alcohol or synthehol while she was living in Seattle. At least, not the years when he was also living there on breaks from the Academy. As far as he knew, she couldn't metabolize synthehol. At least, that's what he remembered from _Voyager_. "Neat."

"I'll have a beer," Icheb said. "Do you have an IPA on draft?" The server gave a bored nod and Icheb nodded in return.

"Hamburger, medium, cheddar cheese, fries," Hugh ordered.

"Anything to drink?" the server asked, still bored.

"Water." The server wandered away, and Hugh returned his attention to Icheb. He still looked pleased, although maybe a little amused. "I take it you haven't met many other xBs."

"xBs?" Icheb asked.

"Ex-Borgs," Hugh explained. "The first step in establishing a new identity is a name, a way to identify who you are and to own it. To put our Borg pasts behind."

Icheb frowned at that. He didn't need another name, another identity. He was a Starfleet officer; that was enough for him. He rarely thought of himself as formerly Borg anymore, and said so to Hugh. Repeating what he had reminded Seven of that morning, he said, "I was never fully a part of the Collective. My parents had genetically engineered me as a weapon. I was assimilated as a child, and while I was in the maturation chamber, my genetic code led to the destruction of my cube. Only myself and other children in maturation chambers survived." He wondered how Mezoti, Azan, and Rebi were doing.

And then he figured out why Seven had brought him here to meet Hugh.

Hugh seemed to see that realization on Icheb's face. Still smiling, he leaned forward in his chair. "When I was initially disconnected from the Collective aboard the _Enterprise_ , Captain Picard intended to infect me with a virus that would do the same thing once I was reassimilated. Although he reconsidered, the damage of my time as an individual had already been done. My cube could not function and we were disconnected from the Collective." Icheb knew how the rest of that story went; he had been the teaching assistant for a course on the Borg as a first classman at the Academy. "We are more than our pasts as weapons, Icheb."

"I know that," Icheb said, annoyed. "I am a Starfleet officer, the chief science officer aboard the _U.S.S. Coleman_. I'm going to start command training when I return to the _Coleman_ in a few days."

"Congratulations!" Hugh said, and he seemed genuinely happy for Icheb. Icheb didn't know what to make of this man, this 'xB' who was so pleasant and cheerful amidst the darkness of this bar, amidst the darkness of his past, the millions of drones he was directly responsible for destroying and the thousands of individuals he had assimilated. "I hope you get everything you desire, Icheb. I hope you get everything you couldn't have gotten as a drone. And I hope that for all of the billions of xBs who are still out there. We are the most despised people in this galaxy, either property to be exploited or hazards that can be warehoused. You can do so much for your fellow xBs as a Starfleet officer, even if all you do is show Starfleet that you are neither. That you're a person, with emotions and goals, with valuable contributions." He gestured at Seven and himself. "That you're not a _thing_ that is only worthy of being sent out to the dredges of the quadrant, the parts that everyone would prefer to forget exist. Because they prefer to forget that _we_ exist."

"I chose to come out here," Seven said mildly in a tone that told Icheb she had Hugh had had this discussion—argument?—before.

"Did you?" he challenged. She arched her eyebrow, shrugged a shoulder, and took a sip of her whiskey. He looked over Seven's shoulder and frowned. "Bjayzl," he muttered, rising from his chair. "I guess that's my cue to leave."

Seven followed his gaze, as did Icheb. He saw a woman with dark hair approaching, and when he turned back to Hugh, the xB was already halfway to the other door. "They don't agree on much," Seven said mildly.

"Annika!" the woman—Bjayzl—greeted brightly. Her eyes flitted over to Icheb, and then followed Hugh's retreating figure. "I didn't mean to run off Hugh."

"Yes, you did," Seven replied. Bjayzl smiled at that as she took the seat Hugh had vacated.

"I'm Bjayzl," she introduced herself to Icheb.

"Leave him alone, Jay," Seven said before Icheb could reply. Bjayzl gave her an innocent look.

"I just want to know your friends, Annika," she said. That was the second time she had called Seven by her given name, which lead Icheb to conclude that Seven had introduced herself as such when she had come out here. He wondered about that and wondered if it had anything to do with Hugh's comments about reclaiming an identity. And then he wondered why she would have waited seven years to do so if that was her intention.

"I'm Icheb," he finally introduced. "It's nice to meet you."

"Nice to meet you, too," she purred. "Are you joining Annika on the circuit?"

It took him 1.6 seconds to realize that the 'circuit' she was referring to was the Fenris Rangers, but by that time, Seven had already begun to answer for him. "No," she said. "He is just visiting."

"A shame," Bjayzl said with a pout. Seven finished her whiskey and put her glass down definitively as she stood up. "

It was good to see you, Jay," she said with a finality that Icheb didn't question. He also rose and followed her from the pub, leaving the same way they had come.

* * *

 _U.S.S. Coleman_  
Stardate 62827  
December 6, 2386

Lt. Icheb was physically sitting in the science officer's seat, but he had the conn—that was, he was in command of the _Coleman_ for gamma shift. Governor Chakotay had told him in a letter that he had enjoyed those gamma shift commands while he was in command training—he had called it 'command with training wheels,' because you knew that both your captain and executive officer were just a comm away if anything had happened. Icheb had looked up 'training wheels' and found the description to be apt.

Captain del Castillo was even closer than a comm away—she was already in her ready room. She usually started her day around 0700 by reading reports in her ready room before officially assuming command at 0800, and Icheb found her close proximity to be both reassuring and nerve-wracking; she was there and awake if he needed anything, but also there and awake if he messed up on anything.

"Sir," Ensign Grod said from the ops station. "We're receiving a distress call."

"On screen," Icheb said, rising from his station, but Grod shook their head.

"We can't make it out, sir," they explained.

"Location?"

Grod frowned as they bent down and worked the receiver controls. "It appears to be coming from the Qiris sector," the ensign finally said. "Maybe Daimanta? We're going to have to get closer to get much more than that."

"That's outside the Federation," Icheb commented.

"Yes, sir," Grod replied, as if he had needed the confirmation. He frowned in thought, then tapped his combadge.

"Icheb to Captain del Castillo," he said. "Captain, we're receiving a distress call from the Qiris sector."

The response came through the comm instead of in person. * _You're in command, Lieutenant,*_ she said. * _What are you thinking?*_

"The Qiris sector is outside the Federation," he replied. "And as such, we have no legal obligation to respond. However, as we have the capabilities to respond, I believe we have an ethical responsibility to do so."

 _*Sounds like good reasoning,*_ del Castillo replied. _*Go ahead and give your orders, Lieutenant.*_

"Lieutenant Stanley," Icheb said. "Set a course for the Qiris sector."

"Aye, sir," Stanley replied.

Forty minutes later, Captain del Castillo stepped out of her ready room. "Report, Lieutenant," she said.

"All systems operational, Captain," Icheb replied. "We are on our way to the Qiris sector to investigate a distress call. We should be arriving in 9.3 hours at current velocity."

She gave a short nod. "Get some rest, Lieutenant," she said. "We're going to need you in 9.3 hours to lead the away team. Good work today."


	6. The Doctor

San Francisco, Earth  
Stardate 64178  
May 26, 2388

Dr. Taban was smiling as he finished writing the note from his last patient. It was Thursday, his favorite day of the week. "And done!" he said triumphantly. He rose from his chair and made his way toward the door of the clinic room before he realized he was still in his uniform. "Change appearance from uniform to civilian clothing theta 15," he ordered, then gave a nod of satisfaction as his new outfit shimmered into existence, and resumed his course.

"Have a good evening, Dr. Taban!" Crewman Hsu said cheerfully as walked by.

"And you as well, Crewman," he replied with a smile.

He made his way outside and smiled again at the pleasant spring day, a rarity in San Francisco, and gave himself a few seconds to just enjoy the sunshine and the flowers of the gardens surrounding Starfleet Medical. "Transfer program to Casa de Paris, front entrance," he said a minute later, rolling his eyes good-naturedly at the way Tom Paris had named the holonetwork in house. He had asked B'Elanna about it once, and she had rolled her eyes and said there were some things not worth arguing about.

He appeared in front of the familiar door and pressed the announcer chime, and the door slid open without any hesitation, revealing the sounds of the typical chaos in the Paris household. At least one child was crying, which was not unusual. "Doc, I can use a little help in here," Tom Paris called out from what sounded like the living room, and the Doctor made his way in that direction to see the holoprogrammer in question tending to a screaming four-year-old. "This one got hit in the head and hasn't stopped complaining about it."

"Your son seems to have inherited your predilection for head injuries," Taban commented as he redirected Joey Paris' attention, relieving Tom of that task.

"I'm pretty sure this wasn't his fault," Tom replied, his voice tight with frustration. "On account of the softball that was thrown at his head. If you'll excuse me, I have a six-year-old to kill. Maybe two."

"I hardly think infanticide is the answer, Mr. Paris."

"Are you sure about that, Doc?" Tom asked rhetorically, followed a second later by a shout out the back door: "Alyah! Myra! Get in here _now!_ "

"It seems you have gotten your sister and cousin in trouble, Mr. Paris," Taban said, addressing his small charge. Joey may have gotten in his tendency toward cranial injuries from his father, but fortunately, he had also inherited his mother's cranial integrity. His injury was nothing more than a bump on the forehead and his cries, already reduced to whimpers, were probably more from surprise than anything else. "You're as good as new," the Doctor said after he took care of the offending bump.

"Thank you," Joey managed between sniffles, running out of the room as Tom escorted Aly and Myra in.

"Doctor!" Aly greeted in delight, running forward to give him a hug. He returned it, then looked at her sternly.

"On account of your brother's health, I must insist you stop throwing things at his head," he instructed.

"It was an accident!" Aly replied automatically. "I was throwing it to Myra and he got in the way!"

"I'm sure," Tom said dryly. "Go up to your room, both of you. Dinner will be in… well, sometime after your mother and sister get home. Upstairs. Go." Aly gave the Doctor another hug, and then Myra gave him a quick one, before both girls ran up the stairs. Tom turned back to the Doctor and gave him the usual 'well, what did you expect?' look and said, "Miral's track practice should be over soon. Naomi is coming with them as well." Dr. Taban smiled at the thought of his first pediatric charge, even though as a Cadet Second Class, she was hardly the pediatric patient she once was. "Can I get you something to drink?"

They took their gin and tonics to the balcony—a good drink for the tropical location; Taban refrained from a history lesson about quinine in tonic water and how it was once a preventative for a disease that, centuries ago, had been found in Costa Rica and similar climates—where Tom filled Taban in on his latest project, and the Doctor updated his former medical assistant on the goings on around Starfleet Medical. Joey ran back and forth between them and the house, obviously having forgotten any trauma from his recent injury.

They heard the front door opening and the sound of Joey running to greet his mother, sister, and Naomi Wildman, and both Tom and Taban rose to greet them as well. "Doctor!" Miral greeted enthusiastically, giving him a hug.

"How was track practice?" he asked. "Is your ankle still bothering you?"

"No, it's fine," she said quickly. "I'm learning how to run the hurdles. Coach says I have a lot of power in my stride and can clear them really well. He said I'm going to learn how to pole vault, too."

"We'll see about that," B'Elanna said.

"It's not dangerous, Mom," Miral replied with a roll of her eyes, telling Taban that they had had this argument before.

"The constant injuries I had from pole vaulting would disagree," B'Elanna replied, and Miral rolled her eyes again. She looked back up at Taban.

"Mom never lets me do anything fun," she said in Klingon.

"I can still hear you," B'Elanna informed her in the same language.

"Your mother doesn't want to see you hurt," Taban informed her, also speaking Klingon, and Miral switched to Spanish.

"I also ran the 1600 in 7:47 today," she said. "That's three seconds faster than last week."

"Congratulations!" Taban said, then switched to Romulan. "And what are you learning in school?"

Miral frowned in concentration as she tried to remember the words, and when she replied, she jumbled up the order. Myra's voice correcting her in a sing-song tone came down from the second story, and even though she couldn't see her cousin, Miral shot a glare in that direction. "I'm still working on my Romulan," she confessed in Standard.

"It is certainly improving," Taban replied in kind, feeling the rush of pride at that. He couldn't take all the credit in her language proficiency, but as her godfather, he certainly did his part in ensuring that she was growing up a well-rounded, knowledgeable citizen of the Federation. He glanced up at Tom. "Mr. Paris, I would wonder how you ended up with such an intelligent daughter, if I didn't know your wife."

"Ha," Tom replied, even as he smiled down at his daughter. Not very far down; she getting tall, and for the first time, Taban realized that she was only a few centimeters shorter than her mother, and felt a pang of sadness at how quickly all of the children were growing up. "Go upstairs and get cleaned up," Tom told his oldest daughter. "Dinner's almost ready." Raising his voice, he said, "Aly, Myra, come down and help set the table."

The two girls rushed back downstairs as if they had been locked up there for days, not the fifteen minutes it had actually been. "Hi, Mom," Aly greeted her mother, giving her a hug, and B'Elanna narrowed her eyes and looked at her husband.

"Attempted homicide with a softball," he answered the unasked question.

"It was an accident," Aly said quickly.

"Mm-hmm," B'Elanna replied as she brushed curls that had escaped Aly's braids from her face. "Your dad asked you to help set the table. You, too, Myra." The two girls couldn't look more different—Aly with her light brown curls, green eyes, and a forehead that left no question about her Klingon ancestry; Myra with her thick black hair and just the faintest suggestion of Northern ridges between her upswept eyebrows—and couldn't act more different—Aly was loud and as impulsive as her father; Myra was quiet and calculating—but ever since Dr. Laura Paris had returned to Earth with the small Romulan orphan who had somehow won the affections of the woman who frequently declared that the best thing about children was that they belonged to someone else, the two girls had been inseparable. They went to the same school in Lima, did all the same sports and activities, and slept over at each other's house as often as not. Myra usually went with her mother when Laura traveled for work, but this current trip wasn't safe for anyone, especially not a six-year-old Romulan girl.

"Next time Laura goes on a three-week trip, she's taking both of them with her," Tom commented.

"Really?" Aly asked in excitement.

"No," B'Elanna said, then glared at her husband. "Stop making the punishment so rewarding."

They sat down and ate dinner—shortly after he finished his degree in holoprogramming, Tom made some upgrades to the Doctor's program, allowing him to "eat" and "drink" holographic food and experience the same sensations as actual eating and drinking—and talking, the conversations jumping everywhere from what the adults were doing at work to what the children were doing in school to admonishing said children for making faces at their siblings. All of the children were growing up, and none as quickly as Naomi, tall and graceful and looking very much like an adult, despite being only 15 Earth years old. "How is your project going?" Taban asked her. She was an engineering major; B'Elanna was her advisor and had her working on a salvage project that seemed much more complicated than a typical cadet project.

"It's going really well," she said cheerfully, before launching into an explanation that even he, with his advanced programming in emergency engineering as part of his ECH program, couldn't follow.

"Naomi," Tom interrupted with a laugh. "Nobody understood what you just said. Except you and B'Elanna."

Naomi chuckled and ducked her head slightly in acknowledgement, her cheeks pinking slightly. "How is everyone?" she asked the Doctor.

One of the many benefits of being a hologram—he got to be the glue that held the _Voyager_ family together; his program could be transferred through subspace at the blink of an eye, allowing him not only his weekly dinners with the Paris family, but also Sunday breakfasts with Admiral Janeway—he was sure that was the only day of the week she actually _ate_ breakfast, despite the number of times he told her that a pot of black coffee was not a substitute for a balanced diet—biweekly dinners with Harry Kim and his family, monthly visits to Tuvok on Vulcan, and others.

"Yeah," Tom said. "How are Harry and the Kimtones?"

Naomi grinned at the nickname that Tom had given Harry's family, after the jazz group that then-Ensign Kim had fronted aboard _Voyager_. "They send their regards," the Doctor replied. "Lisbet has started playing the piano."

"She's _two_ ," Tom said flatly.

"Well, I didn't say she's any good at it," Taban remarked.

After dinner, B'Elanna and Naomi talked about her project for a few minutes before heading back to the Academy. Miral wanted to walk with her to the transporter station, which Tom allowed, stipulating that she was to come straight back as soon as Naomi beamed away, and that allowance got loud protests from Aly, who said it wasn't fair that Miral got to go with Naomi when she couldn't. Both Tom and B'Elanna rolled their eyes at this protest, clearly accustomed to it.

"It looks like you're keeping Naomi busy," Taban commented to B'Elanna as they sat out on the balcony, each with a glass of wine. She smiled slightly at that.

"If we were still on _Voyager_ , she'd be one of my deputies by now," she commented. "She's got a real mind for this. We're working on fixing up an old Nova-class ship that I rescued from a salvage yard."

"I thought you and your husband learned your lesson about rescuing ships from salvage yards," Taban joked. B'Elanna smiled thinly.

"No homicidal neurolinks on this one," she assured him. She sighed as she took a sip of her wine. "If we were still on _Voyager_ , Naomi wouldn't need me to keep her busy." He didn't know what she meant by that, and she elaborated. "The Academy is not an easy place to be when you aren't like anybody else. It's not an easy place to try to fit into. I couldn't manage it. It wasn't an issue on _Voyager_. Everyone had known Naomi all her life. We were all used to her being around and being underfoot. She didn't realize that she didn't fit in until she moved to Ktaris." The door opened as Miral returned, which prompted a new round of shouting between her and Aly. B'Elanna sighed and leaned her head back. "These kids," she muttered, before shouting into the house, "Aly! Myra!"

The two girls appeared both trying out innocent expressions that Taban was sure B'Elanna didn't believe for a second. B'Elanna kept them standing there without speaking long enough that the smile on Myra's face had faded, and Taban could see the beginnings of uncertainty around Aly's eyes, although she kept smiling. "What's going on?"

"Miral doesn't want to play," Aly said with an exaggerated pout.

"And what's the rule about bothering your sister when she doesn't want to play?"

"But she _never_ wants to play!" Aly protested, and for a split second, that look of uncertainty was on B'Elanna's face before replaced with the previous resolve.

"That's not true, and even if it was, that's her business, not yours. When people want to be left alone, you leave them alone. You two can easily play without bothering Miral. I love you—both of you—but please be less annoying."

The girls murmured their assent—or their apologies; Taban wasn't sure if either had said an actual word, in any language—before they ran off. "These kids," B'Elanna said again.

"Sometimes, I miss having a family," Taban admitted, and B'Elanna's head snapped over toward him.

"Don't even think of asking—"

"No, no," he interrupted reassuredly. He still winced at the memory of the first family he had had, and not entirely because the memory of Belle still gave him a shoot of pain, even 15 years after her death. It was his own hubris he regretted, the belief he had had back then that he could just program people and make them love him and do what he wanted them to do. "I would never do that to another program, to create someone just to serve me and suit my purposes."

B'Elanna's shoulders relaxed fractionally. "I hope you know, it was never my intention—"

"I know," he assured her. B'Elanna was impulsive and often made decisions without thinking them through, but she wasn't cruel. She never would have intentionally killed his child, and probably wouldn't have altered Belle's program at all if she had known that that would be result. "But I wasn't thinking about that. I was thinking of Mareeza and Jason." It was Mareeza and Jason he always thought about when he thought about his family. He could still remember the sound of her voice drifting out of an open window as she practiced her aria, can still remember the small boy on her lap, that boy who hadn't realized that Taban wasn't—and couldn't have been—his biological father, but likely wouldn't have cared even if he had known. Of all the regrets he had in life, the one he regretted the most was that he left them. It was not intentional, of course—staying there as long as he had wasn't intentional, either—and by the time he had gotten over his excitement at being back on _Voyager_ and seeing the friends he had thought would be gone forever, too much time had gone by. It had been two hours on _Voyager_ by the time he realized that Mareeza had grown old thinking that he had walked out on her, that Jason had grown up without a father. Being with Mareeza and Jason, being Taban, was when he understood what it was like to have a family. To be alive.

And so when Starfleet Medical informed him that he needed a name if he wanted to keep working there, that he couldn't just be 'The Doctor' off of _Voyager_ , that was the name that had rolled off his tongue. None of his fellow crew mates from _Voyager_ ever referred to him as such, but that was okay with him.

"I never thought I would be the family type," B'Elanna commented. "But for as much as these kids drive me up the wall…"

"I know," he assured her again. She had been so scared to be a mother, but she had taken to it so automatically as soon as Miral was born.

Tom came out to join them, pouring a glass of wine from the bottle on the small table, and the way he and B'Elanna looked at each other told Taban there was something unspoken that they weren't saying. "You might as well tell me whatever it is that has you worried," he said with a sigh.

"What makes you think I'm worried about anything?" Tom asked automatically. Taban raised an eyebrow. "Maybe you should stay here for a while," Tom said, not meeting his eye. "I can clear out my lab, and—"

"Is there something wrong with my apartment?" It wasn't actually an apartment; it was a holosuite at Starfleet Headquarters, but it was his home.

"There's been talk," B'Elanna said. "About advanced holograms. With the synth concerns."

"That's ridiculous! I would never—"

"We know," Tom interrupted. "But Starfleet security has raised concerns to the Federation about the ability for outside entities to tamper with your programming. The way they did with the synths." Nobody knew yet who was behind the synth attack on Mars, but there was almost universal agreement that their actions were programmed into them, not any sort of free action by the synths themselves. "We just thought—"

"To what end?" Taban interrupted. "I just hide out here, in your hololab, until when?"

"We can figure that out—"

"No, Mr. Paris," he interrupted again. "I will not live my life in fear of what someone else may do or decide."

He didn't even have time to do that.

The words were barely out of his mouth when they heard the chime of the front door. "Shit," Tom muttered as he glanced at his PADD. He looked up at his wife. "You invite any engineers over for any reason?"

"No," she said slowly.

"Then it's probably Starfleet security," he said with a sigh as he rose. "Stay out here. I'll take care of this."

B'Elanna said, "If you want to download your program into the house network—"

The next thing Dr. Taban knew, he was standing in an empty hololab, an angry Admiral Kathryn Janeway standing next to an even angrier B'Elanna Torres, an officer in a teal uniform standing behind the controls and another in a gold uniform by the door. _Does he think I'll make a run for it?_ Taban thought when that registered, amused by the thought.

Where did they think he would go?

"This is an outrage," Admiral Janeway said, her voice that quiet fury that sent shivers down Taban's holographic spine. "The Doctor is a Starfleet officer and a veteran—"

"The program is Starfleet property, ma'am," the officer in the teal uniform interrupted. "And Starfleet has ordered the program destroyed."

"Destroyed?" Taban asked in disbelief. "Admiral, this is—" He stopped at her upraised hand. She turned back to the officer in teal.

"That issue had already been discussed and decided," she said. "Several times, in fact. He is not property."

"With all due respect, ma'am, that was before."

"Before what?"

"Before the executive order from the Federation president, supported by the CNO and chief of Starfleet security. Advanced holograms—"

"He's not just some _program_ ," B'Elanna spat. "He was our crewmate, our doctor. He's our _friend_. He's my daughter's godfather—"

"You made a hologram your daughter's godfather?" the officer asked, shaking his head in disbelief. B'Elanna fixed him with a cold look.

"He saved my life too many times for me to count," she said, her voice somehow even icier than Janeway's had been. "He taught me how to accept myself, and I don't know how to explain that to you in a way you'd understand. When Mars was attacked, he led an expedition of current and retired EMH's to the planet's surface. They rescued almost 500 people who would have died without their intervention. He is not just another program."

"You were able to tamper with his program without any formal training in holoprogramming," the officer countered. "If you could make enough changes to convince him that genetically modifying your unborn child—which is a crime, I remind you—just think of what someone who knew what they were doing could do."

"He's not a weapon!"

"Not yet."

"Admiral," Taban began.

"I'll get an injunction," Admiral Janeway promised. "I'm not going to let anything happen to you. We've already lost one member of our crew to this irrational fear of synthetic life. I'm not going to lose another."

Taban ran cold at the thought of Icheb. He was butchered by a dealer in Borg parts, but Admiral Janeway was right—it was the fear of synthetic life that had been the impetus to his death. He wondered if Icheb had known in his last moments, that those would be


	7. Tom Paris

_U.S.S. Adimasi_  
Stardate 66914  
May 19, 2391

She was exactly where he expected to find her: sitting on the floor of a Jefferies tube in a position that he found hard to believe could possibly be comfortable, her arms halfway buried inside some panel. She apparently hadn't registered the whine of the transporter, no deviation from her focus on the task at hand. For a few minutes, he stood there and watched and wondered if he would ever get tired of watching her work.

As if aware that she was being watched, she turned and blinked. "Shit," she said in surprise. "Am I late for dinner?"

He grinned and showed her the flowers he had held behind his back. "No," he said. "I just wanted to surprise you."

She huffed and rolled her eyes, adjusting her hyperspanner as she returned her attention to the open access panel. "Fourteen years of marriage, and you _still_ haven't figured out that I don't like surprises." But he saw a smile tug at the corners of her lips and knew that she wasn't mad at him.

He took a seat next to her. "Happy anniversary," he said. "You know, I can still remember a time when bringing you flowers to a Jefferies tube got a little bit more of a response," he teased. She chuckled, finally putting down her hyperspanner.

"Kahless, I was young and stupid," she teased right back. "I should have seen right through that."

"To be fair, we were victims of mind control," he reminded her. She grinned at the back and forth and leaned forward to kiss him.

"Happy anniversary," she replied. "Even if this whole relationship is the result of some crazy alien experimentation."

"They really do know how to play the long game," he commented. "Think maybe they'd be interested in taking those three obnoxious kids that resulted from their experiment?"

"Gods, nobody would be interested in that," she said quickly. "We were lucky to find three people to take them off our hands so we could have _one night_ alone without them." Miral was spending the whole weekend at her best friend's house, a 13th birthday present for both girls—how did they have a teenager already?—Aly was spending the night with Laura and Myra, and Joey had been pawned off to B'Elanna's father. _That_ had been quite the ordeal that had taken a few years and likely several of B'Elanna's counseling sessions to deal with, the fact that John Torres had been incapable of being a father to one half-Klingon child, but seemed to really take a liking to being the grandfather of three quarter-Klingon children.

Tom adjusted himself on the deck of the Jefferies tube and leaned back against the side, watching B'Elanna gather her tools, and then she also leaned against the bulkhead opposite him, their knees touching. Jefferies tubes in Nova-class ships were especially narrow, and seated in that cramped position in that cramped space reminded Tom that he wasn't as young as he used to be. Or as thin, especially compared to the woman who somehow hadn't aged at all in the last fourteen years despite having three kids, and he made a mental note to program a calorie restriction on the replicator again. And start visiting his gym program again. Maybe Miral would want to humor her old man and do some sparring with the bat'leths.

B'Elanna was watching him with an amused look on her face, as if she knew what he was thinking. She laughed when he made a face at her, and then sighed as she glanced around the Jefferies tube. "Do you ever miss this?" she asked. "Living on a ship?"

He thought about that for a moment. "I miss _Voyager_ ," he finally said. "Not because of the ship, though." She nodded as if she knew what he meant: the people, the comradery, the common mission to go home, the responsibilities they had and the respect they had from their peers and subordinates. "I don't miss the constant repairs," he admitted, then smiled. "Even though I know you do." She chuckled and gave a small shrug. "I don't miss how much you were working."

"I'm still working a lot," she pointed out.

"You teaching two or three classes a semester and tinkering with this ship is not nearly as much as work as you did on _Voyager_ ," he retorted.

"It's not," she agreed. "I don't know how much longer I would have been able to sustain that, not while raising three kids."

"We probably wouldn't have had three kids if we were still on _Voyager_ ," he pointed out, and even though they had said that before, it still seemed strange. For as much work as Aly was and as baffling as Joey could be, he couldn't imagine his life without them.

"But what would we do without a budding sociopath or a boy who never sits down?" B'Elanna asked sarcastically.

"Our lives would be a lot more boring," he commented. Looking back, he could easily see the moments of action on _Voyager_ , the times that it seemed like they were under constant attack by one group or another, but in reality, the majority of their time had been… routine. So maybe 'boring' wasn't the right word, but any universe that didn't include Aly or Joey had to be at least a little bit more boring than any universe that did. "You probably would have started training Naomi even sooner."

"Would I have, though?" she asked. "She was always hanging onto Seven. If we were still on _Voyager_ , she probably would have been in Astrometrics with Seven and Icheb."

Icheb. It had been almost five years, and the thought of the former Borg-turned Starfleet lieutenant and how he died still pained Tom, and he could tell by the look on B'Elanna's face that she felt the same way. She had been closer to Icheb when they were still on _Voyager_ than he had been—the kid had even thought that they were in romantic relationship, despite the fact that Tom and B'Elanna had already been married by that point—and she had maintained correspondence with him after they returned. They had been college students at the same time, albeit under completely different circumstances, and that had amused her. The few times she had allowed herself to be amused in those hard few years after they left Starfleet.

Tom shook his head. "I don't think so," he said. "With her talents? She would have been drawn to engineering whether she wanted to be or not."

B'Elanna sighed and glanced around the Jefferies tube as if just seeing the ship for the first time. "I miss having her around," she admitted. It seemed like the entire time Naomi had been a cadet, she and B'Elanna had spent all of their free time together, especially after B'Elanna got the _Adimasi_ and they started repairs. "And not just because of all of the hours she put into helping get this ship in running order," she said, again proving that she always knew what he was thinking. She leaned her head against the bulkhead and looked at him again. "Is this what it feels like when kids move out of the house? Because I'm not ready for that."

B'Elanna didn't take people leaving well, and it didn't take someone with counseling experience to conclude that that was a result of her father leaving when she was so young. It had been the biggest hurdle in their relationship, her having to get over her tendency to push people away so they wouldn't get the opportunity to leave her, and now that they had kids, she was starting to see the inevitability of them moving out. It seemed particularly hard for her to think of Miral leaving, which was counterintuitive considering that they had started the expected teenage friction between mother and daughter well before Miral hit her teenage years. B'Elanna's counselor assured her that that was normal in adolescent development as they prepared for an adult life independent of their parents—Tom had certainly seen it between both of his sisters and his mother, and his own relationship with his father had been rocky at best as far back as he could remember—but all B'Elanna saw was a repeat of her own teenage years and her friction with her own mother. She had told him when Miral had started the moody adolescent thing and talking back and rolling her eyes that her biggest fear was that she would repeat the mistakes of her mother and cause a rift that would never get a chance to heal before one of them died. He still didn't know if he believed her experiences on the Barge of the Dead so long ago were real or not, but they had happened around when her mother had died, and she took solace in the idea that they were able to reconcile in the afterlife if they couldn't do it while both were alive. Real or not, he had no intention of taking that away from her. "We still have three or four years until Miral leaves for college," he reminded her. "And if she goes to the Academy, you'll still see her most days."

She made a face at that. "I don't want to be encouraging her to go the Academy," she said. It was a tired discussion; he was supposed to reply with that they shouldn't discourage it, either, and to let their kids figure out their own paths, and he didn't feel like having it at the moment. It was a pointless argument, anyway—neither one of them particularly wanted any of their kids to go into Starfleet. Despite the fact that B'Elanna taught at the Academy, neither was fond of the direction the organization seemed to have taken.

So he didn't reply with the usual follow-up line and instead changed the subject back to the reason why he was there that day. "Fourteen years," he commented with his best disarming grin, the one she had initially rolled her eyes at twenty years ago and gradually began returning it with a smile of her own. "When did you figure we'd make it to fourteen years of marriage?"

"Thirteen years and 364 days, maybe?" B'Elanna joked in return. "I don't think anyone is more surprised than I am that I haven't killed you in your sleep or in a bat'leth training 'accident' yet."

"Why do you think I don't ask you to spar anymore?" he countered. "It has nothing to do with the fact that you always win." She snorted, and he gave a quick grin. "Hell, Miral beats me more often than not these days. I'm going to have to turn to Joey if I want to win."

She scoffed. "I wouldn't count on that," she said. "He may be small, but he's feisty. And he's liable to cheat."

"Can you cheat at the bat'leth?"

"He'd find a way. He _is_ your son." She smirked, and he grinned at their familiar back-and-forth. Joking with each other was how they learned how to communicate with each other without getting hurt; they had been able to walk back anything that got too real by making another joke.

But they weren't insecure kids lost in the Delta quadrant anymore, and thanks to a lot of years of therapy, both independently and together, they learned how to be honest with each other and actually say what they meant and felt. "When you didn't leave after I told you to," she said. "That's when I knew this marriage would last."

"Those were some rough years," he commented.

"A lot harder than I thought they would be," she agreed. "Coming back home was supposed to be this amazing utopia and everything would be easier with the ground beneath our feet." That time, they both snorted. "But I'm glad we had those rough years. Not _glad_ , but…"

"Yeah," he said. "If we could survive that, we could survive anything."

"Don't speak too soon," she said warningly. "We're going to have two teenage girls in the house at the same time. And those two girls are Miral and Aly." He feigned taking a steeling breath and she smiled. "I'm glad you didn't listen to me," she said. "I'm glad you didn't leave."

"So am I." She knocked her knee against his, and he returned the gesture and smiled. "Is this thing ready to fly yet?" he asked, gesturing around them. It had been almost three and a half years since B'Elanna had rescued the Nova-class ship from the scrap yard, and for the last seven semesters, she had been using cadet engineering majors to do the heavy lifting of the repairs by calling it the lab portion of the salvage and repair classes she taught at the Academy.

"It can fly," she said. "And with the modifications we've made to the warp core, it should be able to sustain warp 9.997 at conventional warp and handle slipstream without any difficulties." She sighed an almost regretful sigh. "There's really nothing else to fix on it."

"Impressive for a 25-year-old scout vessel originally meant to go no faster than warp 8."

"I've had some good cadets."

"They have a good professor," he countered. She smiled at him.

"Where would you even take it?" she asked. "It's meant to hold 80 crewmembers. I doubt you could keep it running with fewer than 30."

"Where do you want to go?" he asked. "You name it, I'll fly you there. I'll go anywhere you want me to, Torres."

She smiled again, and he knew that she believed him. After all, he had been doing that since she got her engineering degree. He followed her to Mars, and after their adopted home planet had been attacked, he followed her to the heat and humidity of Costa Rica, even though he could get sunburnt sitting out on their balcony with his morning coffee, because she liked the warmth and liked to be able to sit on the beach whenever she wanted. She didn't like living on Earth, and if it wasn't for her job at the Academy, they never would have stayed. They both knew that he would pack everything up and move again, anywhere she wanted to go, if and when she decided she was done teaching there. "We still have the issue of being completely undermanned," she pointed out.

"Think maybe you can steal Naomi back from Harry?" he joked.

"Don't tempt me," she warned.

He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out the program stick he had just gotten. "Maybe this will help," he said. She looked at questioningly, then up at him. "It's an emergency hologram program. We can make a whole holographic crew."

Her eyes widened. "How did you get that?" she asked, her voice a little over a whisper. "Advanced holograms—"

"Tavarez is working on modifying it. Making the holograms a little less advanced, see if that gets some buy-in from Starfleet. He gave me this one to work on to see what can be modified to make it a little more palatable for the powers that be."

"So this is a—"

"Completely unaltered emergency hologram kit," he finished for her. "The same capabilities you would have found standard on any Starfleet vessel five years ago. We can program them however you want."

She took the program stick and turned in her hand, as if examining the stick would reveal any secrets. "Kahless," she muttered. She took a deep breath and looked at him. "I have something, too," she admitted, and she reached into the pocket of the long workcoat she often wore while on the _Adimasi_. For a long minute, she looked at her closed hand, and then looked up at him. "You can't tell anyone about this," she said in complete seriousness, and he wondered what she could possibly be holding that could be as dangerous as she was making it out to be.

And then she opened her fist to reveal the Doctor's mobile emitter.

He didn't know how long he stared at the small piece of 29th century technology before he realized that his mouth was hanging open. He closed it, then opened it again. "How long have you had this?" he finally asked.

"Since he was deactivated," she said softly.

"And you didn't tell me?" he exclaimed, aware his voice was rising. She looked startled, then a little annoyed.

"He was at our house when Starfleet Security took him away," she reminded him. "The _first_ place they would have looked for his program was our holonetwork."

"Wait," he said. "You're saying… This isn't just his emitter, is it?"

She shook her head. "I downloaded his program right before he was deactivated," she said. "I checked the logs. They have no idea that any version of him still exists."

"You've had the Doctor for _three years_ and haven't said _anything_?"

"I'm sorry," she said. "I had to make sure it was safe."

"Wait," he said again. "How did you even get his emitter? How did Starfleet Security never look for it?"

"Think about it, Tom," she said. "How could they look for it without admitting that they _lost_ a piece of 29th century technology used by _the_ most vocal advocate of holographic rights?"

She had a point, but still… "Why didn't you tell me?" he asked, and the fact that she thought he couldn't trust him with that knowledge hurt a lot more than he thought possible.

"I wanted to," she said. "Every day for the last three years, I've wanted to tell you. But you would have wanted to _do_ something, because you always want to _do something_ , and sometimes the situation requires a little bit of patience. And yes," she said quickly, before he could point out the irony in her lecturing him about being patient. "I know I'm not exactly the poster child for thinking things through."

"Smart missiles, murderous robots, holographic uprising against the Hirogen, Miral, Aly, Joey…"

"Marrying you," she shot back.

"Probably the biggest mistake of not thinking things through," he agreed with a grin, but really, she never thought things through. "You bought a _Nova-class ship just because it was there,_ " he reminded her emphatically.

"At least the ship _I_ impulse bought hasn't tried to kill anybody!" Well, she did have a point with that one, and she smirked when he didn't have a comeback, but quickly got back on topic. "Remember how often you detected unauthorized access into our holonetwork at home that first year after the Doctor was deactivated? And even after the security upgrades, we still get pinged. I had to be sure I had a completely secure holonetwork before we activate him again, and, well," she gestured at the ship around them. "After all, this is my ship, Tom. It's not Academy property."

"And it has a completely independent holonetwork," he said slowly. He knew that, because like she brought him in as a 'guest lecturer' to teach the basics of holodeck and holonetwork repairs, and like almost all of her hands-on lectures and labs, they did so on the _Adimasi_. "C'mon," he said, getting up from his seated position, his joints protesting loudly at the sudden movement. "Let's go have a chat with the Doctor."

A few years ago, he noticed that more and more of his clients were asking about the security of the programs he was writing and editing and the security of their home and office networks. Realizing the changing times, he got his network security certification, and while he much preferred the holoprogramming consulting, at least half of his jobs now were related to security. And although he knew enough to hide his "criminal past," he found that the clients who wanted someone to increase their security actually liked the fact that their security consultant _had_ a criminal past, even one that had nothing to do with network security and everything to do with being a mercenary who got caught flying for the wrong people. Maybe they just liked the idea that a much younger and drunker version of himself had no problems skirting the rules of the Federation.

To be honest, the older, less flexible, maybe more responsible version of himself also had no problems skirting the rules of the Federation. He just did it in a way that was technically more legal.

He used every trick in the book to confirm that the holonetwork was just as secure as he remembered and then took a deep breath. "Are you sure you're ready?" he asked B'Elanna. "We don't have to do this today. If we get caught…"

"We've been caught before," she replied. She was going for levity, but he could see that she was as anxious about this as he was. "We have friends in high places. I'm sure Kathryn could get us out of any trouble."

"She'd find a way to demote me again first," he joked in response. She rolled her eyes and smiled, and then took his hand and squeezed it almost hard enough to hurt.

"I've had this mobile emitter for three years," she said. "I've waited long enough."

He nodded. "Okay," he agreed, and took the emitter from her. It had been more than 13 years since he last transferred the Doctor's program from the mobile emitter to a ship's computer, but he found that it was just as straightforward on the _Adimasi_ as it had been on _Voyager._ "Last chance," he offered.

"For the love of god, Tom, just open the damn program already."

He grinned over at her, and then did just that.

It took a few more seconds to stabilize the program, and then for the first time in almost three years, there he was. The Doctor looked around quickly, clearly disoriented, before his eyes fell on Tom and B'Elanna. "B'Elanna! Tom!" he exclaimed. "What happened? Where am I?"

"It's good to see you, Doc," Tom said, unable to keep from grinning. He gave the Doctor a big hug, which seemed to surprise the hologram even more. "It's really good to see you."

"You as well, Tom," the Doctor replied. A look of realization passed over his face. "B'Elanna looks as lovely as ever, but you seem to have aged, Mr. Paris. I didn't just leave your house, did I?"

"No," Tom said.

"How long?"

"Almost three years," B'Elanna said. "It's stardate 66914."

"Three years!" the Doctor exclaimed. "Happy anniversary," he said a second later. "I guess that would make it your fourteenth."

"That's right," Tom said.

"Which means Miral is thirteen years old," he continued. "Thirteen! The things I've missed! And Aly! Is she still trying to commit grievous bodily harm on her little brother? How is Joey? I can't believe he's seven years old!"

"The kids are fine," Tom said. "Yes, Miral's thirteen. She's as beautiful as her mother and has the attitude to match."

"He's not wrong, unfortunately," B'Elanna agreed with a sigh. "And she flies like her father. Completely recklessly."

"As long as she doesn't fly any shuttles into any lakes in the next few years, I'm counting it as a win," Tom countered. "Aly's still a handful. She and Myra are either going to take over the Federation or end up in jail one day, my latinum's on jail, and Joey has enough energy that you could strap him to a warp core and make it to the Delta quadrant before dinner."

"I can't wait to see them," the Doctor said with a satisfied smile, and Tom and B'Elanna looked at each other.

And speaking of making decisions without thinking things all the way through… how the hell had they not thought this through and figured out what to do with the Doctor after they reactivated him? With the ban on synths and advanced holograms, he couldn't just return to his old life, his old friends, his old job. What did that leave them? Should they just… turn him off again?

"What was the last thing you remember, Doctor?" B'Elanna finally asked. He frowned at the question.

"I was at your house for dinner," he began. "Starfleet Security came, and then I was in a hololab with you, Admiral Janeway, and a few officers who didn't introduce themselves." He frowned again. "And that's the last thing I remember," he said slowly.

"You were deactivated," B'Elanna said bluntly. "Advanced holograms have gone the way of androids and the rest of synthetic life."

"So how am I here?"

"Short story?" Tom asked. "B'Elanna smuggled you out. We're on the _Adimasi_."

"Your Nova-class ship," the Doctor said to B'Elanna, who nodded.

"Nobody knows your program is still active except the three of us," Tom said.

"Admiral Janeway?"

"Nobody," Tom repeated, and the Doctor looked at him, aghast.

"So I'm a fugitive, running from the law, simply for existing?" he demanded, and Tom sighed. He should have known that they would be treated to a dramatic performance. "What about my rights?"

"You have none," Tom said. "Hence their ability to deactivate you and erase you. Well, attempt to deactivate and erase you."

"You can't go anywhere, Doctor," B'Elanna continued. "Not until we figure this out. You're welcome to say here on the _Adimasi_. The whole ship is equipped with holoemitters and you can run whatever program you want in the holodeck. We'll find a way to get the kids up to visit you or for you to come down to our house, once we confirm that it's safe. But for the rest…"

"Please," the Doctor pleaded. "Please at least tell Admiral Janeway that I'm okay. That I'm still…alive. I remember her fighting for me in those last minutes in the hololab. I have to believe that she would want to know. I have to believe that there's something that she could do."

Tom looked over at B'Elanna again and sighed. He really wished they had thought this part through before they brought the Doctor back on line, but he was right—what choice did they have but to tell people, at least Kathryn? They couldn't just keep him locked up on the _Adimasi_ like a toy to be brought out and played with only when they thought about it. "Okay," he said. "We'll tell Kathryn and we'll bring her up to see you. And we'll figure out what we're all going to do."


	8. Neelix

Talaxian Asteroid Colony  
Stardate 69576  
April 12, 2394 (Earth)  
45th Revolution of Amanex, 56th Rotation of the Haakonian Occupation (Talax)

Neelix hummed a nonsense tune as he scrubbed the leola root, pausing as he heard the sound of the door opening. "Hey, Dad," Alixia called.

"You're home early," he commented as she entered the kitchen and gave him a kiss on the cheek.

"It's been a slow day in the clinic," she replied. "They know how to get hold of me if anything happens. Do you need help with dinner?" He hesitated, just long enough to make her narrow her eyes. "I can help with dinner," she said indignantly.

"Of course you can!" he replied quickly. "I'm happy for your help!"

"I'm not a bad cook!"

"No, no, of course you're not," he said quickly. "Your food has… very unique flavors."

Alixia rolled her eyes. "Do you want help or not?"

"I'm waiting for Jox to bring some more vegetables, but I can use some help slicing the leola root," he said, gesturing toward the small pile that had already been scrubbed and peeled.

"How is the clinic?" Neelix asked his oldest daughter.

"Slow today," she replied. Her movements as she sliced the leola root were slow and deliberate, so different from the swift, confident motions as she cared for her patients. "Alix and Yexa are having another baby."

"Oh! That's so exciting!" Neelix enthused. "Boy or girl?"

"Another girl," Alixia said with a smile.

"Daughters are so special," Neelix said with a wink, and Alixia laughed.

"I'll tell Brax and Jox you said that," she teased. "Speaking of Brax, are they still planning on getting in today?"

"I haven't heard otherwise," Neelix replied. He hoped they were still planning on getting in today; they had been gone for more than a cycle, and he missed having two of his children around.

Back when he was on _Voyager_ , crew members had always commented on how quickly Naomi Wildman grew up. Not having had any experience with human children, he thought that was just sentimentality; if anything, Naomi matured slower than Talaxian children. In Talaxian families, the relationship between parents and children was the relationship between adults. Children grew up quickly and then stayed with their parents until it was time for them to marry and have their own children, decades after they grew up.

He hadn't realized how much of that he had missed out on in his own upbringing by leaving the home as young as he did, until Brax, and then Namixi, had done the same thing at similarly young ages, and not even the pride in the fact that they were all but following in his footsteps—Brax captained the colony's only ship, and Namixi was his engineer—lessened the ache of their absence when they were out, and he knew Dexa missed them just as much.

Alixia was telling him about work at the clinic when the door opened, and both stopped talking to listen to who entered. Jox's enthusiastic voice immediately registered, and both smiled reflexively at his seemingly endless chatter. A few seconds later, mother and son appeared, Jox with his arms laden in vegetables, and Alixia brightened at the sight.

"Are these your new vegetables?" She asked. Jox grinned and nodded.

"Straight from the garden," he boasted. "Five days faster to maturation than anything else we've produced. And 15% larger."

"I don't know how I feel about your genetics experiments on our food," Neelix said with a frown, even as he accepted and inspected the vegetables. Jox rolled his eyes.

"It's only the size and maturation genes we've enhanced," he said. "No effect on the flavor, Dad. We have more people to feed now." He left the implications of that unsaid: _And we're running out of room and resources._ It was a tired discussion, one that they and everyone else on the colony had had, more times than anyone could count. It was why Jox was doing genetics experiments on their vegetables, why Brax and Namixi spent more time out on the ship on trading and supplies runs than at the asteroid itself, why Alixia concentrated on genetics in her medical practice.

"Is Dr. Taban coming over to dinner?" Dexa asked her eldest daughter, effectively ending that discussion before it started.

Alixia shook her head. "He's still on Earth," she replied, then smiled slyly. "Probably with Dr. Paris," and Dexa smiled knowingly. Neelix was prepared to protest, and then wondered why he would. The Doctor had been spending most of his time since he had been reactivated three years before "hiding out," as he put it, on the asteroid colony, working in the clinic and overseeing most of Alixia's medical education, but frequently transferred back and forth to the Federation, embedded in Tom Paris' programs. While he was in the Federation, he spent a lot of time with former _Voyager_ crewmates, but did also spend a lot of time with Dr. Laura Paris. As far as Neelix knew, they were just friends, but he didn't know why he should be opposed to the idea that they might be more. Tom's sister was smart and witty and attractive for a woman of her age; was Neelix's internal objections because the Doctor was a hologram? He didn't think he still had prejudices about relationships between holograms and organics, but maybe he still did. Was it because Dr. Paris wasn't part of their _Voyager_ family? It had been almost sixteen years since _Voyager_ had returned to the Federation; most of the crew had partnered with people who hadn't been on their journey.

Alixia and Dexa were deep in a discussion about their theories of the relationship between the two physicians while Neelix and Jox continued to work on dinner. Jox was in his last rotation of formal schooling before he started working—in the genetics labs and the farms, which he had determined rotations ago—and despite how quickly Talaxian children grew up, Jox was eager for childhood to end, even more so than Brax or Namixi. It seemed only Alixia had ever been content with her current stage of life, whatever that had been.

Jox was excitedly talking about the latest experiments with the pleeka crop when the door opened again, and unlike when Jox and Dexa entered, there was no need to pause to assess who it was, Namixi immediately occupying all the air with her chatter. "Mom! Dad!" she exclaimed, even before she could see who was home. "Ooh! And Lixi!" she greeted her sister as she entered the kitchen, immediately wrapping her in a tight embrace.

"Hi, Mixi," Alixia returned the greeting with a laugh. The two sisters had been so close in age—it seemed like Alixia had just been born when they discovered Dexa was pregnant again—and despite their very different personalities, had always been close, one rarely seen without the other until Namixi left to join Brax on the ship. "How was the supply run?"

As expected, Namixi immediately launched into a blow-by-blow of the entire cycle that they were gone, seemingly complete with everything every member of the crew had said and everyone they had encountered and everything they had traded, the stories continuing while dinner was being prepared and carrying over to the dinner table itself, and Neelix couldn't be happier.

It was so good to have his whole family under one roof again.

Brax was being uncharacteristically quiet throughout dinner, even considering that Namixi was doing enough talking for the entire family of six, but even more than his quiet, he looked preoccupied, like there was something on his mind that he couldn't shake. "Did you meet anyone new?" Neelix asked, directing the question at Brax.

"No one new," Brax replied after a pause. "It's just…"

"We ran into the Klingons again," Namixi finished for him, and Neelix felt himself relax. The Klingons were Klingons, but they were a known quantity. Since Neelix had joined the asteroid colony, they had been faced with at least half a dozen different representatives of different governments, all wanting to claiming mining rights for themselves and most not too thrilled to take no for an answer. The Klingons had no interest in mining, and after a few exchanges about the proper rate for the minerals the Talaxians mined, they've had an unofficial trade agreement for the last decade.

"It's a bit earlier than usual for them to need a resupply of ore," Neelix observed.

"They seemed less interest in trading than usual," Namixi said diplomatically.

"We may have pissed them off," Brax commented, earning a sigh from his youngest sister.

"Brax may have pissed them off," Namixi corrected. "But I think we can iron it out." Brax may have been the captain of the colony's only ship, but Namixi was far more political of the two and already in training to take over Neelix's diplomatic duties.

"What's going on with the Klingons that you managed to piss them off?" Alixia asked.

"Kohlar's sick," Namixi explained. "Maybe dying, and there's a bit of a power struggle going on for who is going to take his place. There are factions forming, and not all are interested in sticking to the agreements that you made."

"In what respect?" Neelix asked.

"One of the factions wants to take over the colony and enslave us to do their mining for them," Brax replied matter-of-factly as he helped himself to seconds. Neelix was the only one who caught Dexa's reaction, the way her face paled at the declaration. Although they had told their children about the Haakonians and the way they had taken over Talax and destroyed Rinax, he and Dexa were the only ones who had lived through it, who knew what it was for a foreign power to come in and take everything you loved. For Brax and the other three, having home taken from them was an abstract idea, a hypothetical that they hoped they were adequately defended against. For Neelix and Dexa, it was history that they had lived through.

And had no intention of repeating.

"What does that mean for us?" Jox asked, directing the question at his brother.

"Nothing," Brax replied, "because it's not going to happen."

"How do you know?" Jox pushed.

"We're working on it," Namixi interjected, shooting a glare at her older brother. "That's just one faction. And Kohlar is still alive and in charge. We have time to figure it out."

"We've just been biding time since we got here," Brax argued, and Neelix knew from his tone that this was an argument that he and Namixi had had ad nauseum during their latest supply run. It had been an argument they have all been having ad nauseum for the last several rotations.

They were outgrowing their colony and were rapidly approaching the time they had to do something about it.

"And just what do you want to do about that, Brax?" Namixi asked in a taunting tone, the one that said that she knew what he was going to say but was just forcing him to say it to the whole family.

Brax wasn't one to back down from a challenge, certainly not one issued by his sister. "It's time we went back to Talax," he said, now taking his turn to give her a challenging look.

"It's not our home anymore." It was Dexa who said this, her voice quiet enough to give both arguing children pause.

"We don't know that," Brax said after a few beats. "Maybe the Talaxians who were left took it back from the Haakonians."

"How?" Dexa asked. "They destroyed everything we had. We had nothing left to fight back. And I don't see the Haakonians allowing the remaining Talaxians to do anything about that in the last 56 rotations. We were lucky to leave when we did."

Neelix's family hadn't been so lucky. Everyone on Rinax had been killed without any warning.

"Then _we_ take it back," Brax said.

"With what?" Namixi asked. "We have _one_ ship. There are more than 700 of us on this asteroid. How are we supposed to get _700 people_ onto our ship? For a 40,000 light-year journey? Toward a home we know _nothing_ about the current status of?"

"What would you suggest?" he asked her. "Staying here? Jox, how well is that going to work with our current food supply?"

"I—"

"Or maybe we should find a bigger home somewhere? Maybe an actual planet this time? Lixi, how well is that going to work for us? How many generations do we have before lack of genetic variation is going to be a problem?"

"Dr. Taban and I—" Alixia began, but Brax didn't give her an opportunity.

"We _have_ to find a new home, and it _has_ to be one with more Talaxians," he said. "I think it should be Talax, but maybe if we head in that direction—"

"With what ship?" Namixi asked again, exasperated. "The ships you guys came over on were dissembled to build this colony. We only have our current ship because we were able to augment Dad's old ship. How are we supposed to dissemble our colony to build new ships while we're living here? And there are more of us than there were when the original colonists set out from Talax, and more kids. For a 40,000 light-year journey. Even if we can retrace the steps Mom and the original colonists took, or Dad and _Voyager_ took, that's _years_ in space. More likely, we're talking generations." She shook her head. "We need better plans than 'let's just leave and fight our way back to our ancestral home.'"

Brax opened his mouth to reply, but a sudden shaking of the house stopped any words he might have said. "What was that?" Alixia asked once they stopped shaking. Neelix already had his PADD out, connecting to the central command console.

"We're under attack," he said in surprise, just as another volley shook their house.

It had been rotations since the last time someone had attacked their home.

"Who is it?" Brax demanded, already heading toward the door and likely toward his ship, Namixi close on his heels. Neelix frowned as he worked the controls, trying to remember how to bring up the sensors that would give him that information.

After all, it had been rotations since the last time someone had attacked their home.

"I… I think it's the Klingons," he finally said in surprise.

"Still don't think it's a problem, Mixi?" Brax asked as they rushed out the door, and Neelix didn't catch his youngest daughter's reply, her already out the door and him trying frantically to connect to the Federation.

"Mayday, mayday," he said, hoping that he had connected and the message was being transmitted to the Alpha quadrant. "We're under attack by the Klingons. Repeat, we're under attack. Please provide assistance however you can." He set the message to repeat continuously, already frantically trying to figure out what to do until Starfleet could arrive. Thanks to their slipstream technology, a journey that once required a Borg transwarp conduit could now be made by any Starfleet ship in less than a week.

Which still meant that they had to hold off the Klingons for a week.

"Get on the ship," he said to his family. Dexa blinked at him in surprise. "You're going to be safer there than here. Brax will keep you safe."

"What are you going to do?"

"Try to see if I can remember how to operate the defense system we have set up," he said grimly. "Please, Dexa."

She nodded, understanding through the silent communication that came from rotations of marriage how scared he was for his family and how distracting that would be for him. "Stay safe here, my love," she replied, already herding Alixia and Jox out the door.

"I will see you soon," he promised. He watched the door close behind them, and then returned his attention to the task at hand, the one he failed at so miserably 56 rotations before: defending their home from people who wanted it for themselves.


	9. Seven of Nine

Freecloud  
Stardate 69587  
April 16, 2394

It had been almost a year since Seven of Nine had set foot on Freecloud, and she could tell within the first 30 seconds that she hadn't missed much in that time.

Same bars, some with different names. Same patrons, some with different names.

The establishment that she had previously conducted business in had changed its name; she wasn't sure if that was due to new ownership or some sort of evasion scheme by the same owners, but neither did she care. Either way, they had been too lazy to change any of the décor inside the bar. Including the bartender, who had merely raised an eyebrow at her presence and reached for a bottle of darkly colored bourbon that probably hadn't been touched since her last visit. He didn't comment on her prolonged absence, which she appreciated, nor her reappearance, which she also appreciated.

People tended to respect each other's privacy on Freecloud, which was why the Fenris Rangers conducted most of their business here. Business that she would be getting to tomorrow. Usually she avoided such inefficiencies as having to be on Freecloud overnight, but nothing about this 'business' was usual. Nothing involving any of the former Borg drones ever was.

The woman who slid into the barstool next to her had fiery red hair, redder than it had been the last time Seven had seen her. She wondered if the woman colored it, but didn't wonder enough to ask. Red was the dominant hair color for Species 6961, after all, and hair sometimes changed hues as people aged. "Noumedi bourbon," the woman said, and Seven finally looked over at her to see if this was a question or an observation on Seven's beverage.

Neither. It was a request for the bartender.

"Are you even old enough for that?" Seven asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Wow," Lt. Naomi Wildman said dryly. "Have you been taking lessons on making stupid jokes about how quickly some people age from Tom, or did you come up with that one on your own?" She took a sip of bourbon, just enough to show Seven that it was not even close to her first time doing so. "Even if I was fully human, I'd be plenty old enough for bourbon, thank you very much."

"This isn't a place for Starfleet lieutenants," Seven commented, and was relieved that Naomi had had enough sense to not wear her uniform on Freecloud. Her outfit was similar to Seven's own: trousers, boots, a work shirt, leather jacket. With the clothes, the bright red hair loose over her shoulders, and that look of annoyance on her face, she actually looked like she could fit in on Freecloud. "I believe Starfleet has restricted this entire planet for active duty personnel."

"Not when your commander is Harry Kim," Naomi replied, taking another drink of her bourbon.

"I doubt Commander Kim has the authority to override Starfleet policies." Naomi just shrugged at this, as if the distinction didn't bother her, nor the implication that she was breaking Starfleet protocol, and for a quick second, Seven was sad about the fact that the girl who had tried so hard to memorize Starfleet protocols and Borg species designations was gone.

Must be the bourbon making her nostalgic. It was nostalgia that led her to the bourbon in the first place, and despite her annoyance at how illogical that was, she kept coming back to it whenever she was at a bar that carried Noumedi bourbon. She wasn't a bourbon drinker; she preferred whiskey, but Noumedi bourbon reminded her of the man who now helped produce it, despite the fact that the last time they had seen each other, neither was even aware that Noumedi bourbon existed.

The relationship hadn't lasted long, but she still had fond memories from it. They hadn't spoken or written since he boarded the transport for the Omicron sector, but that wasn't out of any ill feelings. They had simply realized that their goals were incompatible, and she felt not compelling reason to maintain a correspondence.

Seven polished off the rest of her drink and stood to leave, but stilled at Naomi's hand on her sleeve. "Harry didn't defy however many Starfleet policies to come to Freecloud and send me down here just to have a glass of bourbon," she said. "He has plenty of Chakotay's bourbon in his quarters."

"I did not assume that he had." Seven didn't return to her barstool, but nor did she walk away.

"Neelix is in trouble," Naomi said. "The colony was attacked. By the Klingons."

"I am aware," Seven replied. Communication worked differently out here in the fringes of civilization, but it did work, and sometimes she found out things faster than Starfleet did.

Naomi took a deep breath. "We're taking the _Adimasi_ out," she said. "B'Elanna and I equipped it with a slipstream drive. We can get there in a week. Come with us."

"Who is 'we?'" Seven asked. She returned to her barstool.

"Tom and B'Elanna, obviously. And the kids. Harry. Rawiya. _Their_ kids. Admiral Janeway. The Doctor. My parents, believe it or not, and my brother. A bunch of other people. You know how everyone is. Admiral Janeway asks, and they come running."

The former crew of _Voyager_ did have an extreme reaction to their former captain, even though they had now been home more than twice as long as they were stranded in the Delta quadrant.

"Your boyfriend?"

The simple question got the first visible reaction out of Naomi, a definite pinking of her cheeks. "How did you know—"

"Communication works differently out here in the fringes of civilization, but it does work," Seven pointed out. She knew about the boyfriend, another lieutenant, a Romulan xenobiologist, of all things. They had been together almost a year, if Seven's sources could be trusted. Which they usually could be. Especially as this particular source had been Samantha Wildman herself.

"Nirav is coming, yes," Naomi acknowledged. The question had disarmed her, which was the intent, but Naomi had always been a bright child and was quickly redirected. "It's _Neelix_ , Seven. And he needs our help."

"There are people here who need my help as well."

"But they're not Neelix!" Naomi exclaimed, and although Seven was tempted to point out that that was obvious, she knew what Naomi was saying. Neelix was her godfather, after all, but he was a lot more than that, to a lot of people. Including Seven. He had been a mentor of sorts, for years.

"Neelix is one man—"

"His entire colony was attacked, Seven. That's a few hundred Talaxians."

"But it is not a Talaxian colony that has you scrambling to help," Seven pointed out, and Naomi's eyes narrowed. "People need me here."

"I know he was a son to you," Naomi said, her words low but insistent, coming out quickly, and they weren't talking about Neelix anymore. "But he was a brother to me. And hell, who knows what else had we still been on _Voyager_. It was a damn small ship and we were the closest in age." Seven didn't want to be reminded of Icheb and all the ways she had failed him, and again got up to leave, but Naomi wasn't done. The lieutenant blinked a few times, and for a second, Seven wondered if she was going to cry, but no tears formed. "After Mezoti and the twins left…" Naomi's voice trailed off now, and she drank the rest of her bourbon in one large gulp before slamming the glass down on the counter harder than necessary. She turned back to Seven, her eyes bright. "Why? Why did she leave with them? She could have stayed on _Voyager_ with me. With us. She had _no_ ties to that planet, other than the twins, and they had each other and their parents, but she chose to go with them and leave me alone on _Voyager_. Again."

"Mezoti—"

"And then Neelix leaves. And then we get home, and _everyone_ leaves," Naomi continued as if Seven hadn't interrupted, and honestly, Seven had no idea what she had been about to say about the small former Borg child who had been with them for such a brief time. It had seemed like the right choice at the time, that Mezoti would have a planet to call her home and to be surrounded by people who seemed to care for her, despite them not being her people. But had it been? Had they been sure that Azan and Rebi and the Wysanti were better companions for Mezoti than Naomi and Icheb and the rest of the _Voyager_ crew had been?

Given how things had turned out for Icheb, staying far away from the Alpha quadrant was the best thing that could have happened to Mezoti. Or maybe it was being near Seven herself that had proven so fatal for Icheb.

"It wasn't supposed to be like this, Seven," Naomi said. "You weren't supposed to leave. You _left_ me."

"Nobody left anybody, Naomi," Seven replied. "We returned to the Federation. Our mission was completed."

" _You_ left," Naomi countered. "You were my friend. You were supposed to continue to be my friend, or the cool aunt, or something. And instead… nothing. I go to living on Ktaris with my parents and the first and last time I see you after _Voyager_ returns home is when Mars was attacked almost seven years later. That was almost a decade ago, and since then, you're more concerned with protecting people you've never met than your _family."_

" _Voyager_ may have been your family, Naomi. It was not mine." Naomi looked confused at this, and then angry. Passive-aggressiveness was another trait common among Species 6961, but Seven would be as quick to attribute that short fuse to the years Naomi had had being mentored by B'Elanna Torres. "I spent four years with the _Voyager_ crew, and those were four of the hardest years of my life. I was raised by the Borg. I am… grateful, for Admiral Janeway's decision to keep me disconnected from the Collective, even for as hard as that had been. She and the rest of the crew of _Voyager_ , yourself included, protected me and helped me during those four years. Now that the Borg is no more, there are billions of former drones who deserve someone to care about them the way that you cared about me. They are my brothers and sisters. They are my family. And they need my help."

"We need you, Seven," Naomi said, and Seven shook her head.

"You don't," she replied. "You have a ship and a crew capable of making the journey without my assistance. For this mission to work, you require people who can negotiate with the Klingon colony, and between B'Elanna and Miral, you have that."

"Miral?" Naomi asked, confused. "She's not even 16. What does she have to do with this?"

Seven smiled slightly at that as she gestured the bartender for another bourbon, then made it two. She assumed Naomi was no lightweight, and also assumed that Harry Kim himself had a transporter lock on the young engineer and would take of her if she overindulged. "I take it you don't remember when the Klingons were on board _Voyager_ , then."

"Of course I remember," Naomi replied indignantly. "It was a bit of a big deal of have 200 extra people on board. And then we found them a new planet."

" _Voyager_ did not simply ferry the Klingons to a new planet," Seven explained. "They went there because B'Elanna told them to."

Naomi snorted. "B'Elanna's persuasive, I'll give you that, but I doubt one half-Klingon engineer—"

"These particular Klingons belonged to a religious sect," Seven interrupted. "One that believed that Miral Paris, _in utero,_ was their messiah. Tom and B'Elanna aren't taking their children along because they could not find adequate childcare. They are taking them along in hopes that Miral can convince them to release Neelix and his fellow colonists." She shook her head. "Your mission doesn't require my assistance, Naomi. You already have the only person who might make a difference."


	10. Lt. Naomi Wildman

_U.S.S. Adimasi  
_ Stardate 69593  
April 19, 2394

Lt. Naomi Wildman awoke and was immediately disorientated. These weren't her quarters. They weren't Nirav's quarters, either. And she was alone.

It came back to her a few seconds later. She was on the _Adimasi._ They would be entering slipstream that day, heading toward the Delta quadrant. Toward Neelix, and the Talaxian colony that needed their help.

That didn't explain why she was alone, though.

"Nirav?" she called out, and was met only with silence. She sighed and reluctantly threw off the covers. It was hardly the first time she had woken alone. Nirav didn't need as much sleep as she did, and while he usually stayed in bed with his PADD until she woke up, it wasn't unheard of him to head into the lab when he had an experiment going. The _Adimasi_ had a xenobiology lab—it had been a science vessel in its previous life—but she knew he wouldn't be there. It wasn't as if he had started any experiments in the 18 hours since they had come on board, nor had any intention of starting one on a rescue mission. No, he would be in the mess hall. She chuckled as she headed toward the sonic shower; it wasn't every woman who had to share her boyfriend's affections with her mother. Or, more accurately, with her mother's science.

Fifteen minutes later, now in a fresh uniform with her hair neatly tied back, she scanned the mess hall as she now always scanned crowds, her eyes searching for that head of red hair. Living on Ktaris for the second half of her childhood, she had constantly been surrounded by people with hair like hers, and she had been surprised when she arrived at the Academy that the scarcity of redheads had unnerved her. She had started looking for them, as if she had some sort of kinship with other gingers.

And then she found Nirav.

He was, unsurprisingly, sitting across from Dr. Samantha Wildman, both with breakfast trays they were mostly ignoring in the favor of the PADDs they were excitedly comparing. "Hi, Mom," Naomi said, greeting her mother with a kiss on the cheek. "Lieutenant," she said in a teasing tone to Nirav, before giving him a quick kiss.

"Lieutenant," he replied in kind, and across the table, Sam chuckled.

"What?" Naomi asked.

"Nothing," Sam said quickly, but was still smirking.

"No, what?" Naomi insisted, and Sam laughed.

"You've been spending too much time with B'Elanna," she said. "That's how Tom and B'Elanna used to greet each other. 'Lieutenant,' 'Lieutenant,'" she said, mocking that same sing-song tone with a smile on her face. "As if they were ever fooling anyone."

Naomi smiled; she had forgotten that Tom and B'Elanna used to do that. "I remember that," she said. "I didn't get it at the time, but I remember that. And seriously, was the intent ever to fool anyone?"

"Early on, I think they were trying to fool themselves," Sam said. "You were too young to remember that, but the betting pools on if and when they would finally get together was entertainment for a year."

Naomi grinned at the thought of her mentor as a young woman flirting with the man who would become her husband. "What has you two so excited this morning?" she asked.

"Leola root, believe it or not," Sam said with a smile. Naomi grimaced and made a face.

"Leola root? Seriously?" she asked, then turned to Nirav. "You got out of bed for _leola root_?"

"It's a fascinating tuber," he replied.

"Ugh. Biologists," she said, getting a chuckle from both Sam and Nirav. Nirav kissed her cheek with a smile on his lips before he resumed his discussion with Sam, and really, she could never be mad at the fact that he was a biologist, specifically a xenobiologist, because she wasn't completely sure she would have gotten a date had he not been a xenobiologist and she Samantha Wildman's daughter. It was back on the _Lekununtu_ , the end of quite the shitty 20-hour day of leading the team realigning the secondary propulsion systems after a series of warp core patches all failed in succession.

All she had wanted at the end of the day, after 20 hours of crawling around Jeffries tubes, was a stiff drink. Or an ice cream sundae. She hadn't decided which yet, but after 20 hours alone with her own thoughts and the voices of the rest of her team over the open comm link while stuck in various tight spaces, she had needed the mess hall, the views of the stars streaking by now that they had returned to warp, the sight of other people around her.

Unfortunately, the mess hall had needed her, too.

One of the replicators was out, various crew members standing around it as if they could will it back into submission by staring at it. "Oh, are you the engineer here to fix the replicator?"

Her usual sweep of the space for redheads should have revealed him from the beginning, but she must have been distracted by the crowd around the replicator, or the 20 hours of dealing with the warp core and the ensigns and crewmen under her also dealing with the warp core. A redheaded Romulan in a teal Starfleet uniform; how had she missed that?

"No," she said. "I'm the engineer who just finished realigning the warp core." She sighed, adjusting the strap of her toolkit over her shoulder. Maybe that's what she got for carrying her tools with her, but she had learned back when she was still a cadet that the only way to keep others from 'borrowing' your tools was to keep them with you. "But I'll take a look at it," she said reluctantly. "Maybe it's an easy fix."

He had smiled at that. "Thanks," he said with obvious relief, and then he grinned. "If you get it to work, I'll buy you a drink."

It had been a joke; it was always a joke, but she had been tired and asked, "You have the rations for that?" as if the question would make sense to anyone else. He had frowned, and she quickly said, "Sorry. I'll take a look at the replicator."

It was an easy fix. And he had 'bought' her a drink. And then he asked about the rations, and she did something she never did: she told him about _Voyager_. And it had taken him a minute, but then he realized who she was, and who her mother was, and he got so overwhelmed that it took him probably a full minute before he could form words again.

She always just thought of her mother as her mother. The professor of xenobiology and microbiology at an obscure university on Ktaris, the woman who gave up her Starfleet career for a second chance at her family. She often forgot that being the first Federation xenobiologist to go to the Delta quadrant and back had made her the most published Federation xenobiologist, that her observations of life on the other side of the galaxy had revolutionized thinking of the origins of life throughout the universe and that budding xenobiologists around the Federation learned the precepts that Sam had developed.

Budding xenobiologists such as Nirav.

She had been exhausted and surly, and although Nirav denied it, she was sure that the only thing that had saved her was that she was Samantha Wildman's daughter. And that she had been able to fix the replicator.

It wasn't exactly the conventional start to a relationship, but she had been mentored by B'Elanna Torres, who had gotten sent to the Delta quadrant before she met her husband. Compared to that, the start of Naomi's relationship was downright boring.

He had gone with her from the _Lekununtu_ to the _Skipun_ , which was a tiny, tiny ship that didn't even have a billet for a xenobiologist, because Harry had taken command and offered Naomi the chief engineer position, a billet that came with the promotion to full lieutenant that she would have been due in a year or so anyway. She knew she should have said no, in part because she didn't want such a move to hurt Nirav's career and in part because at that point, she had been a Starfleet officer for more than five years and had served with Harry Kim for all of it, moving from the _Aspatre_ to the _Lekununtu_ and then to the _Skipun_ as the Kim-Avasarala family moved. But it was Nirav who encouraged her and reminded her that being the chief engineer of a small ship, even a ship with only six engineers and 15 engineering crewmen, had been her dream since she had started at the Academy, and besides, 'Chief Science Officer' was never a bad thing to have on one's officer record, even if it was on a tiny ship.

"Where are Dad and Kenny?" Naomi finally asked her mother, aware that she was interrupting their all-important leola root discussion.

"I imagine your father is still sleeping," Sam replied with a smile. She tilted her head toward the galley. "And you'd be surprised to find out that your brother is in the kitchen."

"I forgot this ship _had_ a kitchen," Naomi admitted, craning her neck in the direction her mother indicated, and sure enough, there was Kenny, completely in his element behind a stove. He had never had any desire to follow his mother or sister into Starfleet, instead turning his sights on culinary school when he finished secondary school, and he was _good_ at it. Which made the fact that Naomi could burn food in a replicator even more amusing.

"Of course you did," Nirav teased. "You've been living off coffee since we came on board."

"That's because she trained under B'Elanna," Sam said with a smile. Naomi shrugged a shoulder and took another sip of her coffee; she hadn't even bothered with breakfast before she had sat down.

As if summoned by her name, the mess hall doors opened, revealing Tom and B'Elanna. They were holding hands, which wasn't unusual for them, but given the way B'Elanna was gesticulating with her free hand, Naomi wondered how much of that was affection and how much was him trying to avoid getting smacked by an errant gesture. "Wildman, we've got work to do," B'Elanna barked, and Sam turned quickly in her chair. Tom had immediately started laughing, and B'Elanna looked embarrassed, and then amused, by her mistake. "Sorry, Sam," she said. "I meant the not-so-little little one."

"But I'm sure she can find something for you to do, if you wanted to join," Tom added, and Sam snorted.

"You think I'm going to set foot in an engine room that both B'Elanna and Naomi have marked out?" she asked. "Do I look like I have a death wish?" Tom grinned at that, and both B'Elanna and Naomi rolled their eyes.

Maybe she had picked up some of her mentor's traits.

"You haven't even had anything to eat yet," Sam pointed out to her daughter, immediately switching back into mothering mode, even though Naomi was most definitely an adult and had been for quite a while.

"Engineers don't eat breakfast," Tom said. "They just mainline coffee and consume the souls of their underlings."

"Good thing I have nothing to worry about there," Naomi said cheerfully as she swung her legs out from under the table and grabbed her toolkit. Tom grinned at the 'soulless ginger' joke, even though she thought it was pretty bold of someone whose beard had once been as much red as gray to make jokes about redheads. She turned and gave Nirav a kiss good-bye, and then brushed a lock of red hair away from his forehead. He was due for a haircut; she liked the shaggy look, but it was getting close to being out of regulation. "If we get underway before lunch, I should be able to get away and see you then."

"I know better than to hold my breath," he said with a smile, and then kissed her again. "Good luck."

B'Elanna waited for Naomi to recycle her coffee mug, and then the two women left the mess hall and made their way toward the turbolift. "Did you get your quarters all settled?"

"Why does he have _so much stuff?_ " Naomi asked in exasperation, and B'Elanna laughed. "Seriously, I thought the plan was to be on board for three weeks, maybe a month. He _definitely_ has more than a month's worth of stuff!"

"You're asking the wrong person," she said. "I married Tom Paris, remember?"

"If I had known moving in together would involve so much clutter, I would have insisted on separate quarters." When they came aboard the day before, there had been a lengthy discussion about sleeping arrangements; despite the fact that Naomi and Nirav had been dating for well over a year and spent almost every night together, they had maintained separate quarters on both the _Lekununtu_ and the _Skipun_. It was B'Elanna who, in her usual blunt manner, just told them to give up the façade and take couple's quarters instead of two singles. "Is that why you and Tom didn't officially live together until you were married? Too much clutter?"

B'Elanna snorted. "If that was a reason, I _still_ wouldn't be living with him," she said as they entered engineering. She paused and turned to face Naomi. "Don't let yourself get distracted by the clutter."

Naomi smiled slightly. "I thought Klingons weren't supposed to like Romulans."

B'Elanna snorted again. "Fortunately, racism isn't genetic. Or that would be really awkward, given that my quarter-Klingon daughter's best friend is her Romulan cousin. I started a diagnostic on the slipstream last night. I'm still not comfortable with the variance in the quantum matrix."

"Should be an easy enough fix," Naomi replied, sensing that personal time was over.

"This isn't the _Skipun_ ," B'Elanna reminded her, and Naomi smiled.

"I know," she said. "It's a 45-year-old Nova-class that was never meant to go above warp 8, much less into a slipstream. I helped you rebuild this thing and install the slipstream drive, remember?"

"Don't get cocky on me, Wildman," B'Elanna said warningly, and Naomi grinned and laughed as she readied her tools.

"If five-year-old me could see us now," she mused, "working side-by-side in engineering."

"Is that so hard to believe?" B'Elanna asked.

"I was terrified of you!" Naomi laughed.

"Your two best friends were Borg!" B'Elanna countered, and then immediately drew herself up at her own words. "I'm sorry," she said awkwardly. "I know—"

"No," Naomi interrupted. "It's fine." She sighed and looked up at her former mentor. "Do you think she was right?" she asked. "What Seven said about _Voyager_?"

B'Elanna thought about that for a minute as they got to work on the quantum matrix. " _Voyager_ was a lot of things to a lot of people," she finally said. "Tom and I probably won the game, all things considered. Neither of us lost anything back home—other than jail time—we found each other, and we grew into respected senior staff officers. Some people lost everything and spent seven years in perpetual motion without ever truly moving forward. Your mom won some and lost some—she lost your father, but got you. Seven…" Her voice trailed off. "It's no secret that Seven and I rarely got along," she finally said. She hadn't needed to tell Naomi that; that was one of the reasons why childhood Naomi had steered clear of B'Elanna, back when she was Lt. Torres. "And I hate the fact that I was part of the reason why her four years on board were so difficult. She grew a lot, as a person, but she always seemed so reluctant about it, like she was doing it because she had to, not because she wanted to." She turned to Naomi. "It's hard, to lose someone so important to you when you're so young, because they just leave and never tell you why. Don't hate Seven for it, the way I hated my father. You may have been the child in the relationship, but you had a better handle of who you were than she did. And don't blame yourself. It wasn't your job to keep her around."

Naomi didn't hate Seven, mostly because she didn't know what to make of her emotions and memories surrounding Seven. "Do you think she's happy? Doing what she's doing?"

"No," B'Elanna said bluntly. "It probably gives her satisfaction, but I doubt it makes her happy. I hope she has people who make her happy."

Naomi sighed. "I hope so, too," she replied, even though a part of her wondered if Seven was capable of being happy.

Fortunately, Naomi was right about it being a fairly easy fix, and less than two hours after they started, B'Elanna activated the comm. "Engineering to the bridge," she said. "We're clear for slipstream."

 _*Thanks, B'Elanna,*_ Admiral Janeway's voice replied. _*We need you and Naomi on the bridge.*_

"On the bridge?" B'Elanna echoed, frowning over at Naomi. "Kathryn, we just said we got the slipstream operational."

 _*I'll explain when you get up here.*_ The two engineers looked at each other, frowned, and then sighed.

To Naomi's surprise, there were a lot more people on the bridge than there should have been: she wasn't surprised to see Admiral Janeway, Harry, or Tom, but she couldn't think of any reason why Rawiya, Laura Paris, Miral, Nirav, or her mother would be on the bridge. "You called?" B'Elanna asked sarcastically as she strode out of the turbolift a step ahead of Naomi.

"I've always appreciated your ability to get to the point," Admiral Janeway said with a tight smile. "I just got off the comm with Admiral Clancy. We are _not_ cleared to proceed to the Delta quadrant."

Naomi felt her chest tighten at the words as she scrambled to figure out what that meant, but B'Elanna's reaction was, as usual, immediate. "Who cares?" she asked. "This isn't a Starfleet ship."

"But it does have over a dozen active duty Starfleet officers on it," Tom pointed out, and Admiral Janeway tilted her head in acknowledgement. It took Naomi a minute, but then she figured out what he was saying: the ship could go, but the Starfleet officers couldn't.

"Seventeen, actually. Well," she said, removing her combadge. She looked at it for a long minute before definitively placing it on the console. "Sixteen. It seems Admiral Picard was right. Sometimes the system is just too broken to fix it from the inside."

"Fifteen," Rawiya said without hesitation as she removed her own combadge. "Gods, I've wanted to do that at least half of my career."

"You have?" Harry asked dumbly.

"I love you, Harry. I don't love Starfleet. It's a fine job, but for the last twelve years, the best part about it was that I got to stay with you."

"Well, then," he said, removing his combadge. He stared at it for a long minute, and Naomi wondered what was going through his head. He had his own ship, and in a few months, would be promoted to captain. His entire life had been to get to that point, to get to that next point, and then to retire as an admiral. "To the journey," he finally said, adding his combadge to the growing pile.

"To the journey," Tom echoed, and Naomi was sure that that was something from _Voyager_ , but didn't ask.

"Y'all chose the wrong uniformed service," Dr. Laura Paris said from where she was leaning against a bulkhead. She took a sip of her coffee. "I'm here on official orders, regardless of what Starfleet says."

"Sounds like we all need to transfer to the Federation Public Health Service," Harry joked. Naomi often forgot that the Federation Public Health Service was a uniformed service, just like she forgot that Tom's older sister was actually a captain in that service.

"It's not worth the headache, trust me," Dr. Paris replied.

And then, to Naomi's surprise, Nirav removed his combadge. "Nirav," she said. It was unintentional, but her voice was barely over a whisper. "You don't—"

"I joined Starfleet because my adoptive parents were Starfleet officers," he said, and even though she knew that, he was directing his words to her. "They were—they are still—the kindest people I know, who maybe care about other people too much and will go to no ends to make the universe a better place, even as far as adopting an orphaned kid with an almost unhealthy fascination with bugs and plants—"

"Almost?" Naomi asked, at the same time Sam asked, "unhealthy?" and Nirav smiled at that.

"This isn't the Starfleet that I grew up with," he continued. "The Starfleet that I thought I knew wouldn't give up on a group of people because it's inconvenient. _Another_ group of people. You've always reminded me of the _good_ in Starfleet, Naomi. You and this whole extended family that you have," he said, gesturing at the ship around them before returning his attention to her. "You've kept me going and kept me from becoming the cold and cynical person I'm probably genetically predisposed to be. I told you when Harry offered you the position on the _Skipun_ that where you go, I go. That hasn't changed." He placed his combadge with the others on the console.

Naomi nodded slightly and removed her own combadge. It had been almost ten years since she had left Ktaris for the Academy. She was exactly where she wanted to be, the chief engineer of a small ship. But Admiral Janeway and Rawiya and Nirav were right. This wasn't the Starfleet that she thought was joining, the Starfleet that guided _Voyager_ home all those years ago. She could hide from that fact in her engine rooms and bury herself in her schematics, but at the end of the day, that's not what Starfleet was about. "Where you go, I go," she said to Nirav, setting that combadge with the others. And then she pulled her old combadge from her pocket, the one from _Voyager_ that she had always carried with her for good luck, and looked at up at Admiral Janeway with a grin as she attached it. "Captain's Assistant Wildman, reporting for duty."

The others laughed, the sound of tension breaking, and then B'Elanna, as always, got right back to business. "Right," she scoffed. "This ship needs a chief engineer a hell of a lot more than Kathryn needs an assistant."

Naomi turned quickly to B'Elanna. "Chief engineer?" she asked. "But it's your ship!"

"Exactly," B'Elanna replied. "It's my ship, which means I get to do whatever I want, and someone else gets to figure out duty rosters and write reports. Besides, Harry says you're better at it than I ever was."

"I never said that!" Harry sputtered, and B'Elanna grinned at him before turning back to Naomi.

"Bridge or engineering?"

There was really only one answer to that. Any real engineer preferred the engine room to the bridge. Naomi had liked the engineering station on the bridge, back when she was an ensign on the _Aspatre_ , especially on beta shift when Harry had command. Just his presence there had assured her, had given her confidence that she knew what she was doing. But then she didn't need that confidence boost anymore and found that solace while surrounded by the hum of the warp core.

But this _was_ B'Elanna's ship. "I'll take the bridge," Naomi offered.

"In that case," B'Elanna said as she headed toward the turbolift. "As the owner of this fine vessel, I turn command over to," she glanced at the assembled crew on the bridge, at the now-former admiral, the one physician who was still a captain and the other who had just given up that rank, and the now-former commander who already had his own ship and had been on the list for promotion for captain. There was no easy answer for that, and so B'Elanna did what she did whenever she didn't care enough to figure it out: she dismissed it. "I turn command over to whoever wants it. I'll be down in engineering. Miral, fly safe."

Naomi winked at Miral as the teenager took her seat at the helm as naturally as if she had been doing that her whole life, which, as Tom Paris' daughter, she pretty much had been, and Naomi had a flash to a life that never was, where they were still on _Voyager_ and serving together.

"Admiral, would you like to do the honors?" Harry asked.

"Ms. Paris," Kathryn Janeway said with a smile. "I understand we have one more person to pick up before we continue on our way. Activate slipstream and set a course for Omicron Sector."

"Yes, ma'am."

* * *

Naomi was sitting on a couch in the mess hall, feeling relaxed for the first time in as long as she could remember, out of uniform and reading a book Nirav had recommended to her months ago but she never got around to, when Lisbet Kim curled up next to her. "Hey, sweetie," Naomi said, adjusting herself and the 8-year-old. She kissed Lisbet on the top of her dark head. Her favorite thing about following Harry and Rawiya from ship to ship was that she was there as Deron and Lisbet were growing up, almost as much as their own parents. She loved those kids and liked to daydream about them babysitting for her own kids one day, even though the odds of her being able to have kids were slim at best. But then again, Tom and B'Elanna had had three kids without medical assistance—two without even trying—so who knew what her future would hold? "How was your day?" she asked Lisbet, forcing her thoughts back to the present.

"Mom seems really happy about something," Lisbet observed, which was definitely a Lisbet-type observation, to notice that something was different but to have no idea why. She was very much her father's daughter. "And Dad changed out of his uniform at lunch, which is weird."

"Things are going to be a little different now," Naomi informed her, and Lisbet looked up at her and frowned.

"But you're still going to be here, right?"

"I'm not going anywhere," Naomi promised her.

"And Nirav?"

Naomi looked up to see the xenobiologist in question enter the mess hall, as if summoned. "Nirav's staying here, too."

"Hey, Bitsy," Nirav greeted Lisbet before giving Naomi a kiss. He was the only one allowed to shorten Lisbet's name, and Naomi still had no idea how he had earned that honor. "Are you going to play the piano for me later tonight?" Lisbet brightened at the idea; she never turned down an opportunity to make music. Another way she was her father's daughter.

Nirav had barely sat down before Myra and Alyah came over to practice their Romulan with him—honestly, he benefited from the practice more than they did—and then people continued to trickle in, some stopping by to say hi, some just taking seats, and it was all so comfortable and familiar, but it took her a minute to realize why.

It was just like it had been on _Voyager_ , and for a second, it was what she thought her life was supposed to be. Except if they had been on _Voyager_ , there would be no Myra, no Lisbet or Deron, no Nirav. Her father wouldn't be there, Rawiya wouldn't be there, it wouldn't be her younger brother working the kitchen, Tom and B'Elanna probably wouldn't have had Alyah or Joey.

And Seven would be there. And Icheb.

Nirav squeezed her hand, bringing her back to the present. "You look a thousand light-years away," he said.

"No," she replied. "About 30,000." She paused, then said, "Do you know how hard it was to be a _kid_ when we got back to the Alpha quadrant? All I had ever known was _Voyager_ and the crew, and then all of a sudden, there's a whole quadrant filled with peoples I had never met and knew nothing about, and everyone expected me to be excited to be _home_ , but home was _Voyager_ and that was gone. I had no idea that I was different until Mom and I moved to Ktaris with my dad, because it wasn't weird to be the half-Ktarian kid on _Voyager_. I was the only kid and had one mother and 150 aunts and uncles, and then all of a sudden I'm living on a planet with a lot of different people, but none of them look like me, because somehow I'm both Ktarian and human and look like neither." She had taken advanced genetics courses at the Academy, more advanced than any engineering major would ever need to take, in efforts of understanding how her genes had arranged themselves to get her. Even her own brother was Ktarian-passing, although he had ended up with their mother's blond hair instead of the dominant red. "I was different and I was lonely for a long time, and I didn't really understand why or how until I started spending time with B'Elanna, and that went a long way in learning how to accept myself. And then I get a posting on Harry's ship, and a posting on Harry's _next_ ship, and… and now, somehow, it feels like I'm home again. And I'm glad you're home with me."


	11. Miral Paris

_Adimasi  
_ Stardate 69611  
April 26, 2394

Alyah was good at the _bat'leth_. Miral was also good, but in a different way. Alyah, at 12, was already a few centimeters taller than Miral, and her years of competitive swimming had given her broad shoulders and the upper body strength and endurance necessary for long _bat'leth_ battles. Which meant that Miral's best bet at winning was to take advantage of the speed and flexibility she had cultivated from years at track and field and end it quickly.

The unfortunate thing about sparring with your sister is that she knew exactly that. Alyah played a good defensive game and knew how to tire Miral out.

Miral dropped to a squat abruptly to avoid a high swing by Alyah. "You're not used to being taller than me," Miral taunted. She took advantage of her low position to take a swing at Alyah's legs. The holographic _bat'leth_ went right through Alyah's legs, but not before the surprise knocked Alyah off balance and directly on her ass.

"Dammit!" Alyah exclaimed as she scrambled backwards in a desperate attempt to get away from Miral's strike.

"You're dead," Myra said flatly from where she was sitting on the floor. "That's two for Miral, one from Alyah. Does that mean we can _finally_ do something else?"

Miral bent over and leaned against her knees. "Mom said I have to practice for an hour," she said when she caught her breath again. "And that you two need to stay with me until I'm done." She looked over at her cousin and chuckled. "You want a turn?"

Myra thought about that for a second before she shrugged. "Why not?" she asked as she rose. She tossed her PADD to Alyah. "Your turn to keep score."

"Since when did Romulans know how to use the _bat'leth_?" Alyah joked as she took Myra's position.

"Hazard of being a Paris, I guess," Myra replied, picking up Alyah's discarded _bat'leth_. She adjusted it in her hands before looking up at Miral. "Whenever you're ready."

"I don't think you get to wait until it's convenient for you during a battle," Alyah commented from her position the floor.

"Aren't you dead?" Miral asked.

"I'm haunting you," Alyah said in her best spooky voice. Miral rolled her eyes and returned her attention to Myra.

"Ready when you are," she said to her cousin.

Swimming had been Laura's preferred sport—she even swam on the Academy team for her first two years, before she decided it was interfering with her pre-med studies—and therefore, was the preferred sport of both Myra and Alyah. Myra had a lot of the same strengths as Alyah—also taller than Miral, also with broad shoulders and upper body strength—but where Alyah was a distance swimmer with the associated endurance, Myra preferred the sprint events, and as such, she fought the same way Miral did, with the same quick, strong movements. And she was well-rested, whereas Miral had already gone three rounds with her sister.

But Miral was still more skilled at the _bat'leth_ , and took Myra down three times in rapid succession. "You're still under an hour," Alyah observed with a frown.

"Wanna go again?" Miral asked.

"Not even a little bit," Alyah replied. "Which leaves us with two options: we can put in some default opponents for you, or we can go find something better to do."

"We are in a holodeck," Myra pointed out, and Alyah seemed to consider that for a minute before making a face.

"I'm not in a holodeck mood," she said, her voice almost a whine. "Let's just go. It's not like Mom's standing outside, waiting to catch us sneaking out of Miral's training early."

"Okay," Myra agreed, standing up and then offering her hand to her cousin. "Computer, exit. See you later, Miral," she called over her shoulder as the two girls left, the door sliding closed behind them. Miral watched them leave and looked around the program, then sighed.

"Computer, end program," she said, also heading for the door. She agreed with Alyah, she just wasn't in a holodeck mood, despite her mother's instructions.

She didn't know where Alyah and Myra had gone, but it wasn't to the quarters they shared, former crewman quarters with two sets of bunk beds, a bathroom, and a tiny kitchenette with a replicator and a table in an area smaller than Miral's bedroom. Miral wasn't too happy about having to share a space with her sister and cousin, and they hadn't been too happy to have her there ruining whatever fun they had planned, but it had been a compromise between her parents and Laura that somehow left all three girls feeling like they had been cheated.

She took a quick sonic shower and changed into clothes that didn't smell like she had gone six rounds with a _bat'leth_ in a simulated cave, and then pulled out her PADD to check on her mother's location. The hour that her mom prescribed had passed, but B'Elanna Torres was nothing if not observant; she would see that Miral had showered and changed and would know that she had ducked out early. She suspected that her mom was just looking for something to criticize; she was always getting on her about one thing or another. Her mother just had no idea what it was like to have a mother so…critical.

Fortunately, the icon showed that B'Elanna Torres was well-ensconced in engineering. Probably with Naomi, the engineer that her mother never had. Three kids, and none showing any interest in engineering. It seemed almost…poetic.

With clear corridors confirmed, Miral and her PADD left the cramped quarters and headed for the turbolift. "Deck two," she said.

There was a couch with a view of the stars in the mess hall that was quite popular, but fortunately unoccupied at the moment, and after a detour to the replicator for a mug of her preferred blend of raktajino, Miral made herself comfortable and brought up the _kuvah-magh_ scrolls that her mother wanted her to study, and she sighed as she got started. The Klingon wasn't the problem; she read Klingon as well as Standard, and could converse in Klingon, although her accent needed a little work. It was the damn material.

How the hell had anyone ever thought that she could be some sort of… messiah?

"The way you're glaring at that PADD, I'm surprised it hasn't burst into flames."

She looked up to Governor Chakotay, the man they had picked up from Noumedi a few days before. Her parents' friend, she reminded herself, from _Voyager_ , and he was looking at her with an amused expression. "That would save me some trouble," she finally said, then snorted derisively. "Although if it did, they'd just give me a new PADD with all the same information on it, _and_ I'd have to deal with my mom yelling at me, so I guess it wouldn't, really."

"To be fair, your mom yells at everyone." He still looked amused, deep dimples belying the smile he was trying to hold back. "What are you reading?"

" _Kuvah-magh_ scrolls," she said, rolling her eyes. "This is fucking ridiculous. How can _anyone_ think that this applies to _me_?"

He was actually smiling now, and she didn't know if it was her use of antiquated profanity—thanks, Dad—or if he was some sort of sociopath who enjoyed the agony of others. "I don't know if your parents told you," he said slowly, "but I'm a bit of an anthropologist."

She frowned at him, not knowing how to tell him that her parents didn't tell her that, because her parents didn't talk much about _Voyager_ or their former crewmates, not the ones they didn't see, anyway. She knew that they still wrote to him, and he often wrote back, but as far as she was concerned, he was just one of their friends from the life they had before she was born. "Okay," she said slowly.

"There are many cultures that ascribe god-like properties to more advanced alien cultures, some even worshiping them as gods themselves," he said. "A group of Ferengi set themselves up as gods on a planet in the Delta quadrant. And I actually found the Sky Spirits of my own people. The Bajoran prophets—"

"But I'm not from an 'advanced alien culture,'" Miral argued. "I'm just a _person_. A quarter-Klingon, three-quarters-human _person_. The Klingons would probably consider me _less_ advanced, not more!"

He was smiling that not-quite-smile again, and she was sure he was going to say the same thing people who didn't know her said when they first met: _you're just like your mother_. As if she was nothing more than her dark hair, forehead ridges, and too-short temper. But he surprised her and said, "You're not like your mother. Or your father. Don't get me wrong—I see a lot of both in them in you, but you seem to be your own person."

She narrowed her eyes at this, wondering what he was getting at, but the words that came out of her mouth surprised even her. "How old was my mom when you met her?"

"A little older than you are now. Nineteen."

"Nineteen and already a terrorist. Mom never was one to waste time."

She flinched at her own words; she had just met this man, and was already throwing around the word 'terrorist,' which she used because she knew it got a rise out of her mother. He didn't seem bothered by the moniker, thankfully. "Nobody ever called B'Elanna Torres an underachiever." He seemed to sense her next question. "She was too young for that kind of work, and if I hadn't been so desperate for good people—especially people who could learn their way around an engine room the way she could—I should have sent her on her way. But she was angry. All the time. And she needed a fight as much as I needed people. It wasn't always a good fit, but it worked. And _Voyager_ wouldn't have survived without her. Your father didn't do such a bad job, either." Now he was definitely smiling.

She had more questions about her parents, what they had been like when he first met each of them, when they were closer in age to her now than them now, but her PADD chirped with an incoming message. "Something you need to get to?" Governor Chakotay asked.

"No, it's just Dad, reminding me that my shift at the helm starts in an hour." He looked impressed at that.

"Taking shifts at the bridge? At slipstream? Impressive for 16."

"Almost 16," she corrected automatically, and then wondered why she did. Humans seemed to be obsessed with age—on their terms, on the Earth calendar—but as a hybrid, she didn't age the way full humans did. She may still be a few weeks from her 16th birthday, but she was already a secondary school graduate, and if she wasn't currently in slipstream almost to their destination in the Delta quadrant, she'd be preparing to start college. "And slipstream isn't like when you attempted it on _Voyager_. It's more involved than flying in normal space, but it's not _hard._ "

"You like flying." It was a statement, not a question, and Miral nodded.

"It's my favorite thing," she said. "Well, that and running."

"It's when you feel free." Her eyes narrowed again, trying to assess what this man could mean by that and how he could know that about her. "I used to be a pilot myself. Although I never developed the fondness for running that you describe." He rose from his chair. "I should let you get ready for your shift on the bridge."

"Thank you, Governor Chakotay," Miral said. He turned back and smiled.

"It's just Chakotay these days."

* * *

After her shift at the helm, Miral returned to the quarters to find Alyah stretched out on her top bunk, staring at the ceiling and listening to music much louder than she needed to be. "Computer, decrease audio to 60 decibels," she ordered immediately, then frowned as she looked around for their cousin. "Where's Myra?"

"With Laura," Alyah replied, still staring at the ceiling.

"Okay…" Miral said slowly. She toed off her shoes and tossed her PADD on her bunk. It had been a little over a week since they had come aboard the _Adimasi_ , and she could count on one hand the number of times she had seen one girl without the other. She envied them that bond. She had close friends, but never a best friend the way that Alyah and Myra were best friends to each other.

Alyah finally turned onto her side to face her sister and shrugged a shoulder. "We got bored," she said simply.

"Ah," Miral said with understanding. Their mother liked to complain that there was nothing more dangerous than Aly when she was bored— _not even a warp core breach can do as much damage_ , their father would chime in dryly—so it didn't take much to interpret 'we got bored' as 'we did something we were expressly told not to do, got caught, and got in trouble.' "So, you're being separated for the good of the ship."

"Something like that," Alyah admitted. "More like, for the good of Deron Kim."

Despite herself, Miral chuckled. "He is far too young for you. Either of you."

"He's three months older than me!" Alyah replied. "Which makes him six months older than Myra."

"You know what I mean." Alyah and Myra may have been 12, but they could have easily passed for 15 or 16, had they been human. Deron Kim, on the other hand, was still on the childhood side of puberty. Developmentally, he was much closer to Joey than Alyah or Myra. And they got along well enough that it amused both fathers.

"Yeah, I know," Alyah said, clearly not concerned about it. "But we were bored."

"You need to find something to do about that. This ship isn't going to get any more exciting."

"Well, it probably will, once we get to the Klingon colony," Alyah countered, "especially with Myra. And Nirav." Her eyes gleamed with that same wickedness she always had when intentionally stirring up drama to alleviate her boredom. Miral sighed; Alyah was still too young to understand that this kind of drama was less amusing when put on the scale of politics that had the potential to disrupt everything they were going to the Delta quadrant to accomplish. "But Laura talked to Dr. Taban and Dr. Avasarala about letting us help out in Sickbay, so that should keep us at least somewhat occupied." Alyah shrugged. It was a good fit for them; Laura was a doctor, so naturally, both Alyah and Myra had their eyes set on medical careers as well. What Laura did, Alyah and Myra wanted to do. "Wanna practice your Klingon?" Alyah asked abruptly. "Your accent needs work."

Miral made a face at her sister. No, she didn't want to practice her Klingon, even though her accent certainly needed work. She didn't want to read ancient Klingon scrolls. She didn't want to practice her _bat'leth_. She didn't want to do anything that would remind her that they were probably less than two days away from her having to convince a colony of religious zealots that she was their messiah and she wanted them to release the Talaxians. "Why does this have to be _me_?" she complained. "You're better at this shit than I am." Despite Alyah's easy boredom and her antics when in that state, she really was much better with people than Miral. She got that from their father, whereas Miral had gotten their mother's impatience.

"Right," Alyah snorted. "I'd end up addressing them in Romulan and getting a war started in two quadrants."

Miral chuckled. "You'd do that on purpose, just to see if you could," she accused.

"It would be fun," Alyah replied, a dangerous and amused glint her in green eyes, and Miral could only laugh and shake her head again.

More dangerous than a warp core breach, indeed.

* * *

Miral was back at the helm when they reached their coordinates. "Take us out of slipstream, Miral," Harry said from the captain's chair. "Ops, start scanning as soon as we leave slipspace, tactical, same thing. Shields up, we don't know what's waiting for us here."

Entering and leaving slipspace were the most involved steps in flying at slipstream, but fortunately, Miral was a good pilot, definitely not inexperienced at slipstream travel, and their exit into normal space was smooth enough that she doubted most people on the ship were aware that anything had changed. "I guess that confirms that Tom isn't the only pilot in the Paris family," Harry said lightly, clasping her on the shoulder. She turned to face him and grinned, and caught Naomi's smile and wink as she turned back to her controls.

"Sir, we're being hailed," the former ensign manning the ops station announced.

"On screen," Harry said.

The ship on the screen was a design Miral didn't recognize, immediately before it was replaced by the active comm. She didn't recognize the person on the screen, but she did know he was Talaxian. _*This is Captain Brax of the_ Primix _—*_

"Brax!" Naomi exclaimed from the engineering station. The Talaxian blinked in surprise before he smiled.

 _*Naomi?*_ he asked, then grinned. _*It's good to see you again. I guess this means you got Neelix's distress call.*_

"We did," Harry confirmed. "Is Neelix with you?"

Brax shook his head. _*He stayed back to try to defend the colony. I have the rest of the family on the ship, as well as about fifty others. It's a small ship, and that's all we could get on in such a hurry. And it's been a little tight on board.*_

Harry nodded. "We'd like to have you over, to discuss what happened and come up with a plan for how to proceed."

 _*In that case,*_ Brax said, _*my sister Namixi should come with me. She has a better handle on the situation with the Klingons.*_

"Sounds like she'd be a good resource," Harry agreed. "We're ready to beam you over whenever you are." After closing the comm, Harry looked around the bridge. "Miral, Naomi, you're with me." He frowned and then opened a comm link. "Kathryn, Tom, B'Elanna, meet us in the mess hall."

Kenny Wildman had set out a spread of refreshments and coffee, but Miral had no appetite for any of it. This was it; everything that her mother had been training her for was actually going to happen, and everything—the survival of a colony, potentially their own survival—would rest on her ability to convince a group of Klingons that she was their _kuvah-magh_. Something that she herself didn't believe.

Both of her stomachs were still tied in knots when Kathryn entered the mess hall, two Talaxians in tow. She recognized Brax from the comm, and assumed the woman was his sister, Namixi. She knew Namixi was younger than her—younger than Alyah, if she remembered right—but she was fully an adult and carried herself as such, with a confidence that Miral wished she had an iota of.

She explained the situation—Kohlar's illness, the power struggle already forming in anticipation of his death, the altered trade agreement, the attack on the colony. "I don't know what the answer is," she said, somehow sounding both angry and apologetic. She glanced over at Miral before returning her attention to Kathryn, then B'Elanna. "I know you dealt with Kohlar on _Voyager_. I don't know if he's still in any position of influence within his community, but if nothing else, he'll know who is. And how to influence them."

"If he's still alive." B'Elanna said, her voice tight.

"If he's still alive," Namixi agreed.

Miral's mother sighed and rubbed her forehead, and then looked over at Miral. "Come up with some courses of action," she finally said, directing the order to Harry, or Kathryn, or Namixi, or someone. "I need some time with my daughter."

The benefit to having a mother who not only owned the ship but also repaired it from the studs up was that she knew every nook and cranny of said ship, including the small observation bay behind the galley. "Raktajino?" her mother asked as she gestured Miral to the couch. Without waiting for a reply, she turned to the replicator. "Two raktajinos, one BT and one MP."

She handed one over to Miral and took a seat next to her on the couch with her own. After a long sip of her beverage, she sighed. Her eyes still on the viewport in front of them, she said, "I've been pushing you too hard. I'm sorry."

"Mom?"

"You know I don't apologize often, Miral."

"Or well," Miral added dryly.

"Or well," her mother agreed. She turned to face her daughter. "I am so proud of you, Miral. I am so proud of the person you've been and the person you're becoming. And I'm scared for you."

"Mom?"

"I have _been_ scared for you, from the moment we found out that you were coming," her mom continued. "I have been scared for you, for the way you would move through life, the way people would treat you. And then Kohlar presented us with this…ridiculous idea of the _kuvah-magh_. And I hoped that it would end when we finally got them to agree to settle on that damn planet and we left."

"So what was with the Klingon lessons and the _bat'leth_ training and Klingon mythology and all that nonsense?" Miral asked. "If you thought it was over, why not just…let it be over?"

"We wanted you to know who you were," her mother said, then sighed again. "I spent _years_ of my life hating one part of myself or another. We hoped—I hoped—that if you knew who you were and were you came from, that you wouldn't have to hate yourself the way I did."

"I don't hate myself, Mom," Miral said. "And I don't hate _you_."

Her mother's lips quirked up slightly. "Well, that's a relief," she said dryly. "I know you hate to hear this, but I can't help but see myself in you. Sometimes I think the more I tried to protect you from the experiences I had growing up, the worse I made things. The _last_ person I wanted to become was my mother, and, well. Here we are."

"I don't hate you, Mom," Miral repeated. "I just… I don't want this. I just want to go home. I just want things to be _normal_ again. I want to fly and run and get ready for college. I don't want to pretend to be some messiah. I don't want the fate of an entire colony on my shoulders. I can't _do_ this, Mom."

"You _can_ , Miral," her mother said forcefully. "You are ready for this. And I just don't mean the scrolls, or the _bat'leth_ , or your Klingon vocabulary. You are the strongest, most determined, most _stubborn_ person—"

"Have you forgotten _Alyah_ exists?" Miral interrupted, and to her relief, her mother breathed a laugh.

"Your sister acts like your father," B'Elanna said, "and I know how to deal with that. I've just never been very good at dealing with myself." She smiled slightly. "I know you don't want this, Miral. And I wish I could take it away for you. I wish I could take away every bad thing and every challenge you're going to have to face in your life. But I can't. All I could do as your mother is everything I've tried to do for the last 16 years. All I could do was try to prepare you for those bad things and those challenges. And I really hope that this is as bad as it's going to get. But Miral. You're not going to be alone. I'll be with you every step of the way."

"Promise?" Miral asked, and her mother nodded.

"I promise, Miral." And then to the surprise of both, Miral threw her arms around her mother, and B'Elanna held her tight. "It's going to be okay, Miral. We're going to get through this together," her mother murmured. "We're all going to get through this together."

* * *

Miral had been playing cards in the mess hall with Joey, Deron, and Lisbet when the comm came from the bridge that a Klingon ship had been detected on sensors. "Sorry, all," she said as she rose from the table. She was about to promise that she'd be back when she was done, but the words stopped on her lips.

She didn't know when she was going to be done. She didn't know what was happening next.

Her parents were already on the bridge when she arrived, her mother pacing the length of the small space, her father sitting, strangely enough, in the captain's chair. Harry was standing in the back at ops, and the whole thing was just weird. "Have they responded yet, Harry?" her mom asked abruptly.

"I'm not hiding anything from you, B'Elanna," Harry said in a voice that was almost painfully patient. Judging from the way her mother's eyes narrowed, she didn't appreciate it, either. "They're hailing," Harry said quickly a few seconds later, and immediately, her mother straightened, any sign of anxiety gone so quickly Miral wondered if she had imagined it.

"On screen," she ordered.

 _*Federation vessel,*_ the deep voice of the Klingon on the screen demanded. _*Identify yourself.*_

"I'm B'Elanna Torres," her mother said, her chin set at that angle that Miral knew meant that her mother was not to be trifled with. "And who are you?"

* _You are B'Elanna Torres?_ * the man asked, and despite everything, Miral caught the tone of uncertainty that wasn't there a few seconds before.

"I am," her mother confirmed. She looked over at Miral, then back at the man. "And this is my daughter, Miral. Where is Kohlar?"

* _Kohlar is not in a state to travel,_ * the man said. * _I am Morag, son of T'Greth.*_

Her mother's jaw tightened, the movement so small Miral was sure that the man on the screen didn't pick up on it; the name must have meant something to her, but Miral had no idea what. Her father still hadn't moved from his position in the captain's chair, but Miral had caught his low and slow intake of breath. Whatever that name meant, it wasn't something good.

"If Kohlar isn't able to come to us, then we'll go to him," her mother said, her expression brokering no argument.

* _Outsiders do not come to our planet.*_

Her mother barked a laugh. "Do you think this is a negotiation?" she asked, her voice almost taunting. "We know where your planet is. You won't fire on us. There is nothing to negotiate, Morag. We are going to talk to Kohlar whether you take us there or not."

Morag's eyes narrowed. If he was trying to decide if she was serious or not, Miral could answer that for him. Her mother didn't joke around, and this was no exception. * _I will escort your ship,*_ Morag finally said, and then cut the transmission.

"That went well," her father said after a long minute.

"You kidding?" her mother replied. "That went exactly as expected." She looked over at Miral. "Get ready," she said. "As soon as we enter orbit, we're going to beam down. Let's not give them any opportunity to change their minds."

Miral had so many questions, but didn't know how to vocalize any of them. "Okay," she finally said.

"Meet us in Transporter Room 1 in 15 minutes," her mother said, her dark eyes locked on Miral's without wavering. Miral knew what she was doing; she was making sure Miral was steady, making sure she was ready, making sure she wasn't about to show any weakness. Apparently, she didn't see anything in Miral's own eyes to make her question her resolve, because she added, "Don't forget the _bat'leth_. I doubt you'll be needing to use it, but it'll prove that you are who you say you are."

 _Prove that you are who you say you are._ Simple words that didn't quite capture such a complicated problem: the fact that who she was saying she was, wasn't actually who she was.

She was no one's messiah. She was just…her.

Fifteen minutes later found her in the corridor outside of the transporter room. She had stood in her quarters, paralyzed by her indecision of what she would need down on the planet. In the end, she had just grabbed the _bat'leth_ , the one she's had her entire life, the one Kohlar had given her mother and the Doctor had retrieved from Mars during his search and rescue mission after the attack. "Miral!" Alyah called out as she ran down the corridor, her light brown braid flying behind her. Miral barely had time to release the _bat'leth_ before her sister had flung herself at her. Her embrace was tight enough that Miral could barely breathe, and she knew she was holding onto Alyah just as tightly.

"You're going to be great," Alyah finally murmured in her ear, still not releasing her.

"How do you know?" Miral asked.

"Because you're my big sister," Alyah said simply. "And you're always great." Miral didn't know it was possible, but she clutched her even tighter.

"Aly," their father said an unknown period of time later. "It's time to let your sister go." He had one hand on Miral's shoulder, the other on Alyah's, and they reluctantly parted. Their mother handed Miral the discarded _bat'leth_ again. "Watch over Joey, and don't make trouble for Laura," he instructed Alyah. She pressed her lips into a tight line, but nodded her agreement, and their father gave her a hug and a kiss on the top of her head before turning back to Miral. "Ready?"

"No," she replied, then gave a half-smile. "But yes."

Standing there on the transporter platform, Miral could feel the solid presence of her parents on either side of her. She remembered school mornings as a kid back on Mars, when her mother would walk her to the shuttle stop on her way to work, remembered the way she would hold on tightly to her mother's hand and the comfort in that simple gesture. And so she reached out her hand and found her mother's fingers again and clutched them tightly while they waited for the transporter to carry them away.


End file.
